June Licensing Newsletter
MS licensing terms update
Privacy and Security Terms
Azure Communication Services has been added to the Azure Core Online Services table. Azure Communication Services allows customers to add voice and video calling to your browser or native apps using the calling SDK. Other communication formats available are Rich Text Chat, SMS and e-mail.
Viva Pulse has been added to the EU Data Boundary Services table. Viva Pulse enables Team Leads to send brief surveys via templates to get a snapshot of team sentiment and act on feedback.
Microsoft 365
The following products have been added to the EA/EAS and MCA availability and license prerequisite tables:
Copilots for Sales EDU - Brings AI and Sales insights from their CRM platform into the Microsoft 365 productivity tools used daily like Outlook, Teams and Word. License prerequisite is Microsoft 365 Business Standard/Business Premium/E3/E5; Office 365 E3/E5.
Copilots for Services EDU - Designed to enhance customer experiences and improve agent productivity by integrating seamlessly with existing contact center and CRM solutions. License prerequisite is Microsoft 365 Business Standard/Business Premium/E3/E5; Office 365 E3/E5.
Viva Pulse - Viva Pulse enables Team Leads to send brief surveys via templates to get a snapshot of team sentiment and act on feedback. License prerequisite is Microsoft 365 Business Basic / Business Standard / Business Premium/F1/F3/E3/E5; Office 365 F3/E1/E3/E5; Microsoft Teams Essentials; Microsoft Teams Enterprise; Microsoft Teams EEA
Entra Governance Frontline Worker - Helps organizations protect, monitor, and audit access to critical assets while ensuring employee productivity. License prerequisite is Microsoft 365 F1/F3.
Microsoft licensing prerequisites for Copilot for Microsoft 365 has been expanded to include Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Business Standard/Business Premium / F1 / F3 / E3 / A3 / E5 / A5; Office 365 F3/E1/E3/A3/E5/A5. Previously, Microsoft Business Basic, F1/F3, Office 365 F3/E1 were not included.
Microsoft Azure
Terms for Azure AI Studio have been added - Azure AI Studio brings together capabilities from multiple Azure AI Services. The product terms for services accessed through Azure AI Studio apply including, but not limited to, terms for Azure Machine Learning and Azure AI Services.
A clause has been added for Azure Databricks - Any third-party models that Microsoft makes available in Azure Databricks are deemed as "Non-Microsoft Products". A "Non-Microsoft Product" is deemed as any third-party branded software, data, service, website or product unless incorporation by Microsoft in an online service.
Azure Hardware Terms
Use rights have been added for Azure Operator Nexus to Azure Hardware section.
Azure Operator Nexus is only available for use by Telecommunication Service Providers.
Hardware Terms
Customer is required to procure the Azure Operator Nexus Hardware from one or more third party vendors. Microsoft will provide the Azure Operator Nexus Hardware specifications, based on Customer’s stated goals and requirements as communicated to Microsoft, and a list of vendors from whom Customer may procure the Azure Operator Nexus Hardware. Customer is not required to procure the Azure Operator Nexus Hardware from any of the vendors provided by Microsoft and may procure it from an alternate vendor.
Microsoft Power Platform
Power Automate Process and Power Automate Hosted process have been added to the availability tables as an additional product under EA/EAS, EES and MCA agreements. As a result, Microsoft has removed Power Automate Hosted RPA processes add-on from the availability and prerequisite tables.
The following term for Data Use and Access for Abuse monitoring has been removed from the Product Terms for Microsoft Power BI:
Microsoft will process and store Inputs and Output Content, solely for debugging and to monitor for and prevent abusive or harmful uses or outputs of the service. Authorized Microsoft employees may review such data that has triggered our automated systems to investigate and verify potential abuse.
GitHub Offerings
GitHub AE GHEM (User SL) and GitHub Insights (User SL) have been removed from the EA/EAS availability tables. These products are no longer available as additional products for business accounts.
Enabling Max Session for IBM products on a concurrent user metric
For IBM products licensed under a concurrent user or session metric it’s important to understand three points:
1-????? The default setting of the application is that an unlimited number of users can access it at the same time, this is regardless of how many licenses you have procured.
2-???? Users don’t always exit applications correctly before starting to use it again e.g.:
a.????? User closes a session abnormally by not using the normal sign out button
b.????? User or runs two or more browsers
c.????? A server is still running a service in the background
3-???? Auditors check the MAXSESSION table to verify usage.
This begs the question, what is the MAXSESSION table and how does it help limit usage?
Taking Maximo as an example (the same table appears in various products), the MAXSESSION table is used to track connected Servers and Users.? Every time a session is started a timestamp is entered into the table, this is updated every 60 seconds whilst the session is still active, after which if the session is no longer detected the row is deleted.
There are a few ways to limit sprawl on this table:
·??????? Set the MAXSESSIONS parameter close to your license limit.
·??????? Set the system property mxe.enableConcurrentCheck?to 0 to prevent users from logging in more than once.
·??????? Product dependant, an understanding of where in a particular administration console this can be limited e.g.:
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Public Cloud spending projected to increase by 20% increase 2024
Gartner forecasts worldwide public cloud end-user spending to surpass $675.4 billion (￡531.6bn) this year, up from about ￡441.6bn. This growth is primarily attributed to advancements in generative AI (GenAI) and the modernisation of applications.
All segments of the cloud market are set to experience growth in 2024. However, Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is expected to see the highest increase in end-user spending at 25.6%, followed closely by platform-as-a-service (PaaS) at 20.6%. Despite the strong growth in cloud infrastructure and platform services, software-as-a-service (SaaS) remains the largest segment in terms of end-user spending and is projected to grow 20% to about ￡194.6bn in 2024.
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Palo Alto Networks to acquire IBM QRadar
On the 15th of May it was announced that IBM had agreed to sell its QRadar assets to Palo Alto Networks for $500m, the deal is expected to close by the end of this September.? This is likely part of IBM’s ongoing plan to divest non-core lines of business after the HashiCorp acquisition that was announced in April.
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QRadar provides Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), in essence it logs and triages network interactions to highlight security risks.? As of last year, extra functionality was included as part of the new QRadar Suite, the inclusion of AI being a feature of key interest to Palo Alto.
With this move:
·??????? Palo Alto Networks will offer no-cost migration services to their equivalent product - Cortex XSIAM, this will apply to ‘qualified’ customers (on-premises and SaaS).
·??????? QRadar clients who wish to remain on QRadar on-premises will continue to receive IBM features and support including security, usability and critical bug fixes, as well as updates to existing connectors and the ability to expand consumption.? Its not clear if there is a time limit to this.
·??????? IBM and Palo Alto will form a partnership that will continue to develop next gen AI-powered security, with IBM intending to deploy Cortex XSIAM internally.
IBM reported declining revenue from its security and threat management in 2023, this combined with the $6.4 billion acquisition of HasiCorp is good reason as to why this has occurred now.? Similarly, Palo Alto has in a short period of time overtaken QRadar in terms of revenue and will gain further market share as a result the acquisition.
It’s unclear what the criteria will be for ‘qualified’ customers, but it’s not unreasonable to assume there will be some expectation that customers understand that they are appropriately licensed prior to a migration.? What could be a greater risk to customers is the reduction of competition and trend toward all encompassing security solutions, in time making dependence on one publisher unavoidable.
Palo Alto plan to move their newly acquired SaaS customer base to their equivalent product Cortex XSIAM.? On-premises QRadar customers will continue to receive support from IBM
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Microsoft facing mounting number of anti-competition complaints across Europe
Following on from last years troubles in Europe, Microsoft are making headlines again for all the wrong reasons after a collective of Spanish startups petitioned regulators to investigate Microsoft’s practices within the cloud marketplace across both software and services. The complaint has been lodged by La Asociacion Espanola de Startups (AES) to the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), and it accuses Microsoft of ‘anti-competitive practices’ within the cloud marketplace.
The Association has said that such restrictive practices within the cloud marketplace are impacting both cloud customers as well as suppliers with the Spanish startup ecosystem. The AES, who is representing more than 700 startups across Spain, has alleged that Microsoft is forcing the use of their cloud platform Azure by exploiting their dominant market position of Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office productivity suites.
Concerns raised are points around portability with the ability to move data from one cloud platform to another, as well as inhibiting licensing and contractual terms restricting movement. It is stated that technical and contractual blockers are limiting startup competition and innovation according to the AES. As such, the Association is asking regulators to investigate their complaint and take action to ensure that there is a more open, fair, and competitive cloud services marketplace for all in Spain.
Microsoft have vehemently denied any wrongdoing or market manipulation. They have stated “Microsoft provides choice and flexibility for our customers to switch to another cloud provider at no cost, and our licensing terms enable our customers and other cloud providers to run and offer Microsoft software on every?cloud”.” We will engage with the Spanish Start Up Association to learn more about its concerns.”
The AES complaint is another in a line of complaints in Europe in recent years. In 2023 CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe) who represent European cloud infrastructure providers also lodged a complaint against Microsoft, this time with the European Commission. The CISPE complaint also centred around allegations of anti-competitive practices, with focus on practices including discriminatory packaging, linking, and pricing which they claimed led to technical and economic barriers making it arduous for customers to choose and move between cloud service providers freely and easily.
Francisco Mingorance, Secretary General of CISPE has been quoted as saying that “not only the target, but also the practices [targeted in the Spanish complaint], present some overlap with our pending EU-level complaint.” CISPE and Microsoft are still actively in discussion regarding the complaint with the goal being “resolving ongoing issues related to unfair software licensing for cloud infrastructure providers and their customers in Europe”. Given the progressive complaints, and the nature of them, CISPE are adamant that any remediations or resolution agreed upon must be public and be applied across the entire sector.
Whilst Microsoft may be the focus of anti-competitive complaints and investigations across Europe, in the UK the net has been cast a little wider. The UK regulator Ofcom has referred the entirety of the public cloud infrastructure market to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority for investigation into the full market practices.?
Issues that have been raised across the board include egress fees, which is the charges incurred by customers when transferring data out of a cloud platform. It is claimed that the three ‘hyperscalers’ Google, Amazon and Microsoft charge the highest rates for this service, which in turn is preventing customers from switching providers or using multiple cloud platforms to spread their data and resources.
Another constraint that customers are facing with large scale cloud providers such as Microsoft and Amazon is committed spend discounts, as well as technical restrictions of interoperability and portability. These technical blockers would potentially require customers to reconfigure their applications and data in order for them to work on an alternative cloud platform, causing a potential vendor lock-in scenario. Ofcom have highlighted particular concerned with the business practices of these hyperscale vendors and the impact that they are having on competition in the cloud marketplace.
Time will tell whether the continued build of complaints across Europe, and anti-competition investigations will bring about any meaningful change for Microsoft or indeed any of the other hyperscalers Google Cloud or Amazon Web Services.
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Oracle is threatening software audits as customers seek to exit ULA
As Oracle start their new fiscal year on 1st June 2024 and most Unlimited License Agreements (ULA)
end in May then most customers who have a ULA may have their renewal coming up in 12 months’ time.
Now is the best time for organisations to take control of their renewal and understand how their current ULA is being used and what shape any renewal should take (e.g. Additional / Removal of products).
Whether you renew or exit a ULA it’s imperative to understand what’s being used where so that you have clarity about their current usage. If you exit a ULA, then there is a contractual obligation to report the usage shortly after the exit date which can be a nightmare and lead to compliance risks.
Certero for Oracle is verified by Oracle and the data produced will be accepted in any ULA exit or can be used internally to calculate the current usage so that organisations can reshape the ULA accurately.
Now’s the time for organisations to discuss their current ULA with Certero so we can help you to maximise your investment in the current ULA, minimise your risks should you decide to exit a ULA or building an accurate picture should you wish to reshape your current ULA.
Certero for Oracle helps organisations change the way they understand their ULAs. It allows you to take control of your ULA renewals and stop Oracle leading the conversation or the threats of audit for not renewing.
Thinking of entering a ULA? then STOP, let Certero for Oracle give you an accurate picture of your current usage so that the shape of the ULA can match your current / proposed usage.
Our Oracle Technology Led Service combines the verified Oracle tool with the experience of our consultants to give organisations the data they require to get the best out of their current ULA and shape any potential replacement ULA. For customers who want to exit a ULA then data from Certero for Oracle can be created instantaneously on the final day of your ULA to allow you to meet Oracles true up requirements.
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The end is nigh for Windows 10 21H2
Microsoft has announced that it will cease support of Windows 10 21H2 Enterprise, Education, and IoT Enterprise editions effective June 11, 2024. The support for the Home, Pro and Pro for Workstations editions of Windows 10 21H2 ended in 2023.
Microsoft has stated that the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) versions will continue to provide mainstream support until 2027 and the extended end date for support of the IoT Enterprise LTSC version will be January 13, 2032. The Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 will have extended support through January 9, 2029, and the Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 version will have mainstream support through January 12, 2027.
What can customers do to mitigate their potential risk?
-??????????? Customers can upgrade to Windows 10 version 22H2 which will be supported through October 14, 2025.
-??????????? Customers can upgrade Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC versions (2019 and 2021) referenced above.
-??????????? Customers can upgrade to Windows 11 if they have the eligible devices to support the operating system.
Whilst many folks were holding out hope that Microsoft may throw a lifeline to companies faced with replacing aging hardware or moving to a new platform, these latest notices further confirm Microsoft’s readiness to move past Windows 10.
End of support for SQL Server 2014
Microsoft has announced that SQL Server 2014 will be reaching end of support on July 9th, 2024. This will bring a close to its 10 year product lifecycle and after this time, product support and regular security updates will cease.
This means it is time to review your estate and mitigate and/or modernize these possible future security risks within your environments. There are a few options you have that are outlined below.
1.?????? SQL Server 2014 Extended Security Updates (ESU’s)– These ESU’s will provide up to 3 years of critical security updates to your SQL Server 2014 workloads. ESU’s will be offered for sale to use on-premises and in multiclouod environments and are free for workloads running in Azure. To qualify for ESU’s you must have active Software Assurance on your licenses, and they must be under an EA, EAS, SCE, or EES agreement. ESU’s can also be enabled by Azure Arc from the Azure portal. This is offered as a monthly subscription which will automatically stop once you migrate or upgrade your workload.
2.????? Migrate workloads to an Azure SQL Managed Instance – You can either purchase SQL as part of the Azure Managed instance or you can leverage your Azure Hybrid Use Benefit if you have SQL Server licenses with active Software Assurance. Azure SQL Managed Instances are always up to date as they are upgraded and patched automatically. These Azure Virtual Machines include Azure Dedicated Hosts, Azure VMWare Solutions, Nutanix Cloud Clusters on Azure, and Azure Stack (Hub, Edge and HCI).
3.????? Upgrade to SQL Server 2022 – You can stay protected by upgrading your SQL Server 2014 and older instances to SQL Server 2022. If you have active Software Assurance on your SQL licenses, this option will not incur any additional cost. However, if you do not have active Software Assurance or do not have upgrade rights to SQL Server 2022, this may be a very costly option.
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