ITAM | SAM | SaaS | Cloud - October Insider by Certero
Microsoft Licensing Terms Update
Microsoft 365 Added 10-Year Audit Log Retention
If a customer wishes to retain logs around 365 Events such as AppLocker, Performance, System Center, Call details, IIS, Syslog. SQL, QoE and Security audits, then generally these are available for 180 days.
If the customer would like to increase this to either 1 year or 10 years, then the user who generates the logs must be assigned an Office 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5 License or have a Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance or E5 eDiscovery and an Audit add-on license – for either 1 or 10 years.
Defender Vulnerability Management
This has been added as a standalone SKU to EA, EAS and MCP agreements.
Internet Access / Private Access
Additional SKUs have been added for Entra Private and Internet access. These help to transform the way that your organization can work with the Secure Access client that can access private apps and resources remotely without having to use a VPN. The Entra Internet Access for all apps will act as a Secure Web Gateway for internet traffic.
There are current known limitations to these services. Microsoft has pledged to invest $20B over the next five years in cyber security.
Python in Excel
These are enhancements to the Python features in Excel 365. This update is to improve visibility and functionality where you can edit cells and run them right from Excel. This is now available as an add-on
for Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise/Apps for Business/Business Premium/Business Standard and Office 365 E3/E5.
Secure Access Essentials Frontline Worker to Availability tables for EAEAS, MCA and License Prerequisites table.
This has been added as a standalone SKU to EA, EAS and MCP agreements.
Microsoft Azure Update Added support section to Extended Security Updates (ESU) terms.
Extended Security Updates do not have any support with them. Microsoft have now clarified around ESU Support in the product terms.
Software Assurance Benefits Update Added support section to Extended Security Updates (ESU) terms.
Extended Security Updates do not have any support with them. Microsoft has now clarified around ESU Support in the product terms.
Glossary Update
Updated definition of Reduction Eligible attribute to clarify that EAS customers may report reductions as described in the Enterprise Subscription Enrollment.
Additional Microsoft Dynamics Price Rise
After talking about this in our September edition of Insider, we now know that the Dynamics 365 price increase will be live from the 1st October 2024.
The price increase is between 10-17% and Microsoft has highlighted the new value that they have included in the Dynamics product stack since the last price increase over 5 years ago.
These are available for review on the ‘release plans’ section of the Microsoft website.
AT&T sues Broadcom for 'breaking' VMware support extension contract.
US telecoms giant AT&T has alleged Broadcom reneged on an extended support deal it struck with VMware, and warned the consequences could be massive outages for customer support operations – and even the US president's office.
A complaint was filed late August 2024 in the Supreme Court of New York State which explains that AT&T holds perpetual licenses for VMware software and paid for support services under a contract that ends on 8th September 2024. The complaint also alleges that AT&T has an option to extend that support deal for two years – provided it activates the option before the end of the current deal.
AT&T's filing claims it exercised that option, but that Broadcom "is refusing to honor" the contract.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out as it has ramifications for any other publisher who wants to forcibly move organizations from a Perpetual licensing model to a subscription model if they want to have Support & Maintenance.
Is there a VMware exodus looming?
VMware customers are becoming increasingly frustrated with uncertainty and spiraling licensing costs, after its acquisition by Broadcom.
About 50% of VMware customers are considering ditching services after Broadcom finalized its acquisition.
After a series of drastic changes to its operating model including the removal of a series of popular licenses and products, 48.7% of VMware customers told Civo they were actively exploring alternative cloud providers.
Open source was cited as a popular potential alternative, with 44.8% of current VMware customers stating they were considering migrating to open-source solutions.
Now is a suitable time for all organizations to look at their virtualization strategy and whether a movement away from VMware is a more cost-effective future virtualization strategy.
Recommended by LinkedIn
As Oracle's AWS deal complete questions remain over licensing
At Oracles recent ‘CloudWorld ‘ in Las Vegas, Matt Garman, CEO of AWS, looked comfortable and relaxed being hosted by arch-rival Oracle.
Since 2018, Oracle has been pitching its second-generation cloud OCI against its market-dominating rival with limited success. In 2019, Ellison claimed Oracle's technology is more secure than public cloud competitors like AWS because separate security processors insulate customer workloads. "No other cloud service provider offers this kind of protection," he claimed at the time.
But now, having completed deals with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, Oracle has struck an agreement with the market leader, in which all its hardware and database technology will sit in AWS data centers, making a more proximal arrangement with other cloud services.
In a statement, Oracle said its Oracle Database@AWS could "seamlessly" connect to applications running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), AWS Analytics services, or AWS's advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) services, including Amazon Bedrock.
Unfortunately, licensing hurdles for a few key Oracle Database technologies, an example is Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), which has long been a headache when trying to plan and execute a migration. This new partnership between Oracle and AWS suggests that these challenges are going to be jointly addressed and organizations are going to have a smoother experience migrating and operating Oracle technology stacks in the AWS environment.
Organizations transitioning to the cloud should ensure they understand the terms of their licensing agreements with Oracle, so that they do not unwittingly create a license compliance situation.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 End of Maintenance
On 30th June 2024, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL 7) reached the end of its maintenance support phase. Users must now consider upgrading to newer versions to continue receiving updates and support.
EOM vs. EOL
To upgrade, organizations will need to have a valid subscription for the newer version. Organizations should validate their estate for any RHEL v7 installations, and ensure they have sufficient subscription to upgrade to a fully supported version.
Microsoft will Start Charging for Windows 10 in 2025
Any organization who wants to continue receiving security updates for Windows 10 after the end-of-support deadline arrives on October 14, 2025. A subscription for Windows 10 Extended Security Updates will be shockingly expensive for businesses.
As Windows 10 begins its final year of official support, Microsoft is executing a familiar game plan for its business customers.
Organizations will need to pay a high price to continue with Windows 10. A license for the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program is sold as a subscription. For the first year, the cost is $61. For year two, the price doubles, and it doubles again for year three.
Extended Security Updates should not be considered as a long-term solution but rather a temporary bridge so now is the time for organizations to understand their Windows 10 installations, and what action can be taken to migrate to Windows 11 or replace their aging hardware.
Admins using Windows Server Update Services up in arms as Microsoft deprecates feature
Microsoft is deprecating Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) in Windows Server 2025, signaling a shift towards cloud-based patch management tools like Intune, Windows Autopatch for client update management, and Azure Update Manager for server update management.
It will likely be a few years yet. They have just removed the feature from Server 2025 so it will remain on 2022 until that is end of life. So probably another 3 years unless they remove specific support for WSUS. We knew it was coming as Microsoft wants everything connected to the cloud directly. It also means SCCM won't work as this requires WSUS also. Hence the move to Intune.
Microsoft to retire Action Pack
Microsoft have announced that they will no longer sell Microsoft Action Pack, Microsoft Learning Action Pack, or legacy silver/gold benefits starting January 22, 2025.
These products entitled Microsoft partners to several benefits including marketing resources, product support, virtual training and arguably the most important benefit – a variety of discounted product licenses. These entitlements include but are not limited to Office, Visual Studio, Dynamics, SQL Server, and Azure credits. The Internal Use Rights (IUR) that came with these partner benefits have been targeted for removal in the past. In July 2020, a planned removal of IUR was cancelled due to the backlash from partners who saw the licenses Microsoft granted to them as crucial to the growth of their business.
With the move to the cloud, adoption of AI and newer SaaS offerings, Microsoft stated it is ‘evolving the partner benefits offerings to provide partners with the tools and support they need to continue to lead the way in the shifting tech landscape.’ The replacement offerings of Partner Launch Benefits, Partner Success Core Benefits, and Partner Success Expanded Benefits contain these newer product offerings – be them at more than double the cost of Action Pack.
Going forward partners who purchase or renew these benefits by January 21, 2025, will be able to access them for another 12 months. Partners can transition to the new program by going to the Action Pack portal.