I’ve recently recorded a couple of videos with Nathan Miller, Microsoft Program Manager at Bytes.
In the first, we discuss Copilot for Microsoft 365 (we recorded this in October 2023 but it took me ages to edit it!):
We talk about the General Availability of Copilot for M365 as well as tips for preparing for deployment.
We then talk about the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC): agreement:
where we explain what the MACC agreement is, how it works, and the potential pros and cons for customer organisations. We also talk about the Azure cloud marketplace and the impact this will have on customer procurement processes and also the wider IT channel.
I hope you find the videos useful and informative – as there are more planned! Let me know if you have requests for topics and also if you’d like to jump on a video or podcast with me at some point. I usually focus on blog posts but am looking to get all multimedia on you in 2024 so this is just the start 😁
Update to terms around add-on USLs being purchased on same agreement. It now says “Add-on User SLs, as specified in the Add-ons section of each respective product section,”
New Failover rights for Azure SQL database = “One geo-secondary specifically for disaster recovery purposes“
It has also been spotted that M365 Business Standard and Business Premium have been removed from the license prerequisites for Copilot for Microsoft 365:
Is this a temporary removal to prevent confusion as it is isn’t currently available for those licenses…or is it a sign that M365 Copilot won’t be available for SMB customers? I feel it’s the former but you never know!
Microsoft have announced their financial results for Q1 FY24 (July – Sept 2023) so let’s dive in and take a look.
Overall revenue was $56.5 billion, a 13% increase Year on Year (YoY), while net income was up 27% to $22.3 billion. The “Microsoft Cloud” revenue hit $31.8 billion which was a 24% increase.
Productivity & Business Processes
Revenue = $18.6 billion, up 13%
Office 365 Commercial = up 13%
Dynamics 365 = up 29%
Office 365 growth is primarily driven by SMB and Frontline SKUs.
Intelligent Cloud
Revenue = $24.3 billion, up 19%
Azure growth was 29% which is the first time for 2 year that the rate of growth has increased quarter on quarter. Q4 FY23 was 26% and now it’s at 29% which shows that spend in Azure is picking up at a newly increased speed.
Earnings call highlights
Azure Arc up to 21,000 customers – a 140% increase YoY. <– How much of this is driven by the new PAYG ESUs and Microsoft’s push?
16,000+ customers using Microsoft Fabric.
20 million Monthly Active Users (MAU) for Power Apps.
Total headcount is 7% lower than 1 year ago.
Satya Nadella gives a shoutout to the newly announced Oracle@Azure program as a driver of cloud growth:
“Once we announced that the Oracle databases are going to be available on Azure, we saw a bunch of unlock from new customers who have a significant Oracle estate that have not yet moved to the cloud, because they needed to rendezvous with the rest of the app estate in one single cloud”
Interesting to see Oracle contributing to Microsoft’s growth!
Lots of talk of AI throughout, looking ahead to the launch of M365 Copilot on November 1st.
It’s clear that Microsoft are in a strong position and it looks like growth will continue for the foreseeable. Yes there’s a lot of volatility in the world, both economically and politically, but Microsoft have first mover advantage on per-user generative AI for business users with Copilot as well as several other growing products.
Microsoft have announced that Azure Container Apps are now eligible for coverage with Azure compute savings plans, receiving discounts of 15% and 17% with the 1 year and 3 year plans respectively.
With savings plans, you commit to an hourly amount of Azure spend (say £5) and then any eligible services you use receive the discounted rate up to that amount. Anything over £5 will be charged at the regular PAYG rate:
Microsoft recently announced the option to license Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows Server & SQL Server via Azure Arc, enabling a monthly Pay As You Go (PAYG) model.
The public pricing page here shows different pricing for Standard edition and Datacenter edition:
As you’d expect, ESUs for Standard edition are significantly cheaper than for Datacenter.
What you wouldn’t expect, or at least I didn’t (!), is this:
When you license ESU for Windows Server via Azure Arc and choose the “vCore licensing” option – which is based on the number of virtual cores being used – Microsoft allows you to pay the Standard edition rate “irrespective of how the underlying server or operating system is licensed”.
From January 1, 2024* it will no longer be possible to exchange reservations for:
Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances
Azure Dedicated Host reservations,
Azure App Services reservations
purchased on or after that date. For reservations purchased before that date, you will have the option to exchange once after the cut-off date. There is no limitation being put on trading in reservations for Azure Savings Plans, that will still be perfectly possible.
Ensure you do a review of your Reserved Instances, and how you use exchanges, prior to the end of 2023. If you find a lot of exchanges take place, it’s worth understanding why and what changes you may need to make to processes going forward.
*Update*
Microsoft have extended the deadline to “at least” July 1, 2024, giving organisations at least a further 6 months to get on top of they Azure reservations needs and strategy.
You can see more about the change and grace period here.
For more answers, advice, and insights into Microsoft licensing for you and your organisation – get in touch here:
It’s the Microsoft Product Terms updates for April 2023 and, to paraphrase Puff Daddy and the Bad Boy Family…it’s all about Windows Server baby!
Some key changes that help to harmonise licensing across different platforms, which is a benefit for all of us involved!
Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server changes:
No longer need to allocate 16 licenses as a minimum No longer have to assign stacked licenses in groups of 8 Confirms minimum of 8 core licenses for AHB VM
Licensing Win Svr by individual virtual OSE:
No longer need to allocate 16 licenses as a minimum CSP customers with Standard licenses can use Datacenter images as guests when licensing by virtual OSE – but must follow Standard edition use rights
CSP-Hoster:
Customers do not need Windows Server CALs or External Connector licenses when accessing “server software acquired from, fulfilled, and hosted by a Cloud Solution Provider-Hoster”.
There are a few licensing updates and changes to be aware of with SQL Server 2022 as well as a price increase:
Flexible Virtualisation Benefit
Both licenses with active SA and active subscriptions can now be deployed with any Authorized Outsourcer – that is, anyone who isn’t a Listed Provider (Amazon, Google, Alibaba). However, don’t forget that License Mobility through Software Assurance rights still exist (via SA) which allow you to put software on the servers of an “Authorised Mobility Partner” – and the Listed Providers are eligible for this.
Furthermore, when licensing SQL Server Standard or Enterprise by virtual OSE, if you have active SA you can run an unlimited number of containers containing SQL Server within that virtual OSE.
Related to this, Microsoft have made another change that will cause some issues for certain customers. Licensing a virtual machine based on the number of virtual cores now requires Software Assurance with SQL 2022 and, as that is the only option available for licensing virtual machines with SQL Server Std 2022 (i.e. you can’t license the physical hardware to then run VMs), this means that Software Assurance is a requirement if you have virtual machines with SQL Server Std per core.
Machine Learning removal
Looking at the Product terms, it appears that Microsoft have removed the rights for SQL Server Enterprise customers to use:
Machine Learning for Window or Linux
Machine Learning Server for Hadoop
PAYG licensing
Enabled via Azure Arc, this new billing model enables organisations to pay for SQL Server on a monthly or hourly basis:
The servers must be connected to Azure Arc to use this option. For 2022, the Arc connection is a default part of the setup process while for SQL 2014 and above, it will be enabled via a capability within the Azure portal which is, according to Microsoft, coming soon. This seems to suggest that PAYG isn’t available with SQL 2012 or earlier which makes sense, given they’re all out of support.
See more on SQL PAYG here and the pricing is here.
New pricing
Microsoft have confirmed that SQL Server 2022 Standard, Enterprise, and Web pricing will increase by 10% from January 2023 – including public sector.
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 