Software Assurance Archives - EasySAM

Microsoft Software Assurance – do you really need it?

Mike Varney — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 12:55:00 +0000

Software Assurance

Find out more below

Software Assurance

May Turnbull tackles the confusion over whether you need to buy Software Assurance with your Microsoft licensing.

Published on 21st August 2018

For those of you that follow my articles, you will know that I often write about software licensing faux pas, and Software Assurance (SA) is an umbrella topic that encompasses so much misunderstanding. There is always huge confusion regarding whether SA is needed or not and organizations that are unsure usually just end up biting the bullet and over licensing in a ‘rather-safe-than-sorry’ approach.

A good place to start would be common misunderstandings when it comes to software assurance:

1. You do not need SA on your Windows Server Licensing to enable License Mobility across your server farm/cluster

If you need to license a virtual environment where load balancing is prevalent and virtual machines require movement across the cluster…what you need here is Windows Server Datacenter licensing. Should you wish to make use of the latest version rights, Disaster Recovery Rights or Azure Hybrid Benefit etc., you should explore SA on your licensing here.

Remembering that you can sometimes get some great packages if you do bundle SA into the picture and if you choose not to purchase SA and change your mind later; you will have to repurchase the license all over again. Software Assurance cannot be added back in after the fact unless you make use of the 90-day window to add SA onto OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) purchases.

2. You do not need SA on your desktop applications when streaming through RDS/Citrix/VDI

A common misconception is that software assurance is required on products like Office, Project & Visio if you wish to stream them. When the truth is that you only require software assurance on these products if you wish to make use of Roaming Use Rights. This would allow access by the primary user of a licensed device from a third-party device. If you only provide access to desktop applications to users from work devices, SA is not required.

3. Software Assurance is required for SQL and Productivity Servers to enable mobility across your server cluster

So, what do I mean by productivity servers?

I’m talking about Exchange, SharePoint, Skype for Business etc. If you have virtualized these or any SQL Servers (where licensing nodes with SQL Server Enterprise with SA for unlimited virtualization has not been done), you WILL need software assurance to allow these virtual servers to move freely within the cluster. The only way around this is to lock these virtual machines down or to prove that they haven’t moved more than once every 90 days (licenses are allowed to move once every 90 days without SA).

4. You need software assurance on your Windows licenses if you want to use VDI. VDA (Virtual Desktop Access) is a software assurance benefit

If you haven’t purchased SA on your Windows licenses, you will need to purchase Virtual Desktop Access Subscriptions for each one of the users to allow them access to their virtual desktops. Many people aren’t aware of this and its extra cost implication.
So now that you know some of the more common mistakes when it comes to selecting software assurance, let’s look at some other reasons you might want to consider SA on your products:

Training Vouchers

If your company has a Software Assurance membership in the application or system pools, you are eligible for Microsoft SA training vouchers. NB! This benefit is not available to Academic Select License, Select Plus for Academic, Campus Agreement, or School Agreement customers. Training vouchers entitle you to receive courses from Microsoft Learning Partners for a specific number of training days.

The number of days granted varies by program and the number of qualifying Office and/or Windows licenses covered with Software Assurance. The training vouchers are electronic and can be used at any participating Learning Partner location worldwide.

Step-Up Rights

A step-up is a license type that allows a customer to move from a lower level edition of selective products to a higher-level edition without having to repurchase the full license e.g. stepping up from Windows Server Standard to Windows Server Datacenter. A customer must have active (current) Software Assurance for the underlying qualifying product (the lower edition) to qualify for this benefit.

Support

Another SA benefit is 24/7 Problem Resolution support for business-critical support as well as unlimited email support. Again, the no. of incidence and type of support available to you will depend on your agreement and the products covered with SA.

Disaster Recovery Rights

This is a SA benefit you will need if you want to make use of ‘cold’ disaster recovery (only allowed through SA purchase). Or should you wish to make use of passive server rights where you want to reinstate the primary server earlier than the 90-day license re-allocation restriction.

Hopefully, just hopefully, this has helped shine a light on some murky waters. And fighting the urge to turn this topic into an essay, I leave you all here to digest the key tips provided for you above.

Written by

May Turnbull

Director

Image Credit

Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels

Search

The VMware deadline that could reshape your IT strategy

With VMware Cloud Foundation 9 migration mandated by 2027, many face compressed timelines, cost pressures, and an ever decreasing chance to modernise on their own terms.

Making smarter FinOps tooling choices in 2026

As cloud spending continues to rise, so does waste. So, the question isn’t whether you have a FinOps tool…but whether that tool is fit for purpose.

Why your favourite paid software wouldn’t exist without open source

You might pay a premium for Photoshop, Windows or macOS – but they wouldn’t exist without free, open-source building blocks.

SaaS Sprawl has become the new Shadow IT: why traditional security struggles to see (and stop) it

SaaS – now deeply intertwined with AI – has redefined the enterprise technology stack; and it’s leaving security teams with minimal visibility and even less control

Follow and Subscribe

The post Microsoft Software Assurance – do you really need it? appeared first on EasySAM.

Your rights to Microsoft Azure through Software Assurance

Mike Varney — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 12:19:00 +0000

Software Assurance

Find out more below

Software Assurance

Want to know about some entitlement to Microsoft’s Azure you might not have known you had? SAM Manager May Turnbull reveals all.

Published on 13th July 2017

Greetings from the exciting world of licensing. For those of you that may have noticed that my articles are becoming more sporadic as the demand on my time increases, hopefully this blog will make up for my recent silence. I’d like to tell you all today about some entitlement to Microsoft’s Azure I bet you didn’t know you have. To start you off, a reminder on what Azure is; Microsoft Azure is a growing collection of integrated cloud services that developers and IT professionals use to build, deploy and manage applications through Microsoft’s global network of data centres.

And although there are many benefits to SA (software assurance) and many, many more exciting things to report about migrating to Azure…below are two key areas worth getting really excited about:

Windows Server Datacenter with SA – Additive Azure Rights

If you are running servers covered with Windows Server Datacenter with SA, you might be surprised to hear about an additive right you have to Azure. It is called the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit and actually applies to both Standard and Datacenter editions. The only difference is that with Datacenter Edition, customers get lower-cost instances (they only pay the base compute rate) in Azure as well as rights to maintain their existing on-premises deployments. For Standard Edition, if customers choose to take advantage of the lower-cost instances in Azure, it means they have to decommission the corresponding on premise workload.

The additive rights for Datacenter edition licenses (with active SA) can come in very handy. I would urge you to think particularly of test/development or disaster recovery environments. Utilizing this benefit for things like this means that even though you still must pay the base compute rate, this expense would be kept low as infrastructure in these environments would not be required to be ‘powered on’ all the time.

Monthly Azure credit for Visual Studio subscribers

Similar to the Windows Server Datacenter with SA additional rights for Azure, you will be pleased to hear that Visual Studio Subscribers also get a little piece of the pie when it comes to some complimentary time in Azure. Active subscribers are entitled to receive some Azure credit each month. Depending on your subscription, the allowance varies from £40 to £115 a month. And you don’t have to provide any credit card information!

You can also use this credit on almost any Azure service including virtual machines, web apps, cloud services, mobile services, storage, SQL databases etc. On top of this, dev/test rates are considerably lower than production fees in Azure, so you could expand on this allowance if you needed to.

So, it turns out my grandmother was wrong…there is such a thing as a free meal. After all, good SAM (Software Asset Management) is not just about license management, it’s about making the most out of your investment. The points raised today will hopefully help you to do this. Good luck!

Written by

May Turnbull

Director

Image Credit

Pixabay via Pexels

Follow and Subscribe

The post Your rights to Microsoft Azure through Software Assurance appeared first on EasySAM.