March Licensing Newsletter
Microsoft Licensing Terms Update
GitHub License Availability
GitHub license availability has been updated within the EAS and MCA licensing programs. To view the GitHub offerings available under each program visit here for more information.
Two New Products Added to MS Intune Suite
Microsoft has added ‘Intune Advanced Analytics’ and ‘Intune Enterprise Application Management’ to both the Availability Table and Prerequisite Table. Both are available on EA/EAS, EES and MCA license programs.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 significant changes
Dynamics 365 - new Relationship Sales Clause
New Products for Customers in Denmark
Both added to comply with bookkeeping laws and regulations in Denmark.
The updated licensing terms lay out in detail how Microsoft will comply with the laws.
Copilot Additions
Copilot is now available within the Services for both EA/EAS and MCA license programs, and also features within the license prerequisite tables.
Copilot for Sales also has a new Service Specific Term stating that Dynamics 365 environments and Premium Power automate connections created by Microsoft Copilot for Sales are limited for use with Microsoft Copilot for Sales only.
It is highlighting the restrictions within the terms that the use is limited and restricted solely to within the applications and products stated. Any Copilot for Sales capabilities included as part of any Dynamics 365 Sales products are limited for use within Dynamics Sales environments only.
EES Product Update
There is an additional product update within the EES (Enrollment for Education Solutions) license program for M365, whereby Microsoft have replaced the additional product attribute with a faculty offering for M365 A5 Security and Microsoft 365 A5 Compliance.
Security and Privacy
Along with Azure Container Instances being added to the Core Online Services table, the list of the Online Services that are excluded from the terms of the DPA include:
Extended Use Rights for MS E3/E5
Updated to provide clarity detailing use rights on Office Servers, whereby each licensed user assigned an M365 E3/E5 User Subscription license, may install any number of copies of the following server software, on any server dedicated to Customer's use:
Access to the above is exclusive to those users assigned an M365 E3/E5 User SL or for external users. Servers that are under the management or control of an entity other than Customer or one of its Affiliates, are subject to the Outsourcing Software Management clause.
This entitlement does not apply to User SLs acquired under the MS Cloud Agreement and MS Customer Agreement.
Office Professional Plus
The terms went on to clarify Office Professional Plus rights for Microsoft 365 users with subscription licenses who have a device licensed with SA and their rights to install local copies.
These rights are specific to M365 E3 and E5 users with requisites to prior license entitlement, so read the current up to date license terms, or reach out to your trusted licensing partner for advice before installing local copies of Office Professional Plus with Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
Windows Autopilot
Finally, you can now find that Microsoft have added Windows Autopilot to the list of Online Services components of Windows that are covered by the Universal License Terms for Online Services.
Microsoft Round-Up
Microsoft in discussions with CISPE to remedy ‘unfair’ cloud software licensing practices
Following the formal complaint lodged against Microsoft by CISPE (the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe) a non-profit trade body in November 2022 with the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition, discussions have begun between CISPE and Microsoft to review and with hope resolve what has been described as “unfair” software licensing practices. The complaint was filed due to alleged “anticompetitive license practices” with CISPE releasing a statement at the time saying that Microsoft’s behavior is “irreparably damaging the European cloud ecosystem and depriving European customers of choice in their cloud deployments”, also stating that: “CISPE feels it has no option but to become a formal complainant and to urge the European Commission to act.”
The current discussions that are underway presently are to tackle the subject of charges that customers are facing when using Microsoft Online productivity tool on competitor public cloud platforms. Back in August 2019 Microsoft made the announcement that effective October 1, 2019, their newly announced “listed providers” which did include themselves, would severely limit the ability of users to use their existing traditional Microsoft software on what they termed “cloud services”, effectively cloud platforms. These listed providers included Microsoft, Alibaba, Amazon, and Google, and prohibited the use of pre-existing “traditional on-premises” software being used in the cloud unless the user had software assurance allowing for license mobility where applicable, could leverage Azure Hybrid Use Benefit (also known as AHUB) which can only be utilized within Azure, or licenses which were included within cloud services.???
CISPE have released a statement confirming that discussions have begun between the two organizations, clearly stating their concerns and position that they believe Microsoft’s current “unfair software licensing” practices, claiming that this penalizes European cloud users who wish to run software that they own in other competitor public clouds. In their statement they said that “the process is at an early stage, and it remains uncertain whether these discussions will yield effective remedies to the alleged anti-competitive practices,” however they did go on to suggest that they did expect to see results soon by saying that “to ensure swift and effective progress, CISPE has stipulated that substantive progress must be achieved in the first quarter of 2024”.??
CISPE Secretary General Francisco Mingorance believes that the organization's previous decision to submit the formal complaint and involve the European Commission’s Director General for Competition was a key factor in getting Microsoft to open discussions with them.??
Microsoft have previously when requested for comment, stated that Microsoft “continues to work constructively with CISPE to resolve concerns raised by European cloud providers”.?
In October 2023 industry regulator Ofcom published a report on the UK cloud infrastructure market in which Microsoft and their practices and principles were analyzed and featured. The report was not all favorable to Microsoft, however Microsoft did challenge this and their rebuttal was recorded within the report.
Microsoft retires Azure IoT Central in platform rethink
Microsoft have announced that they are retiring a key element of their Azure IoT (Internet of Things) Platform, the IoT Central Service. This was an unexpected announcement and was delivered by what Microsoft themselves described as an “erroneous system message” on 14th February, Microsoft went on to confirm that “the error message stated that?Azure IoT Central will be deprecated on March 31st, 2027, and starting April 1, 2024, you won’t be able to create new application resources. This message is not accurate and was presented in error.”?
Indeed, when developers logged on to the Azure console they were greeted with the following message:?
“Starting on April 1, 2024, you won’t be able to create new application resources; however, all existing IoT Central applications will continue to function and be managed. Subscription?{{subscriptionld}?is not allowed to create new applications. Please create a support ticket to request an exception”.??
Following an influx of support tickets and queries, Microsoft released a statement on TechCommunity on 16th February acknowledging the error and explaining how Microsoft would typically make a standard retirement notification. They also announced and provided a link to the public preview of the new Azure IoT Operations, however this may be of little consolation to the developers who have been left in limbo with the applications with which they had planned and in the pipeline.??
Whilst the Azure IoT Central Service may be deprecating, as of 1st March it is still possible to search for it and be offered to ‘Try for Free’ or have the ‘Pay-As-You-Go’ option without any warning that this service is soon to be withdrawn.
According to Microsoft Azure IoT Central is a UX and API surface for organizations to connect and manage devices at scale, allowing them to deliver data driven business insights. The platform as a service (PaaS) offering, amalgamates each service beneath it for a more easily configurable, comprehensive, and secure IoT offering.
Microsoft's Azure IoT offering previously consisted of three offerings, these being: IoT Hub, IoT Edge and IoT Central.
The Azure IoT Hub enables secure communication between IoT the application and the devices it manages. Azure IoT Hub provides the cloud-hosted back-end solution connect almost any device. The solution offers per-device authentication, built-in device management, and scaled provisioning.
Azure IoT Edge works to break up data silos and consolidate operational data at scale in the Azure Cloud. It enables you to remotely deploy and manage cloud-native workloads to run directly on IoT devices.?
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For now, it is understood that IoT Hub and IoT Edge will continue until Microsoft say otherwise…
MS fixes CoPilot issues blocking windows 11 updates
Subsequent to the issues that home users have been facing with desktop icons becoming misaligned and jumping between screens, the compatibility hold that blocked upgrades to Windows 11 23H2 has now been lifted following successful resolution of the root cause.
The issue had been plaguing home users who had been using Windows CoPilot on a multi-screen set up running the operating system Windows 10 22H2, Windows 11 22H2 or Windows 11 23 H2. Whilst it was impacting home users of the CoPilot in Windows (preview) it hasn’t impacted managed customers as CoPilot has not yet been extended to Enterprise operating systems.
The issue was resolved using a server-side change for Windows 11 23H2 devices with updates older than 9th January 2024, therefore allowing Microsoft to lift the compatibility on 7th February. Devices with systems with no further system compatibility holds were then able to update successfully. Microsoft stated that "Eligible Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices with no other safeguards should now be able to upgrade to Windows 11, version 23H2” they also added "please note, it can take up to 48 hours before the update to Windows 11, version 23H2 is offered. Restarting your device might help it offer faster."
Microsoft did apply a compatibility hold to block customers using the affected Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices from updating to Windows 11 23H2. A statement from Microsoft said, "If your organization is using Windows Update for Business reports, the safeguard ID is 47615939,".
Broadcom Shuts off Free Version of VMware's ESXi Hypervisor
In the latest development following Broadcom’s November 2023 acquisition of VMware, they have decided to cease the free version of VMware’s ESXi hypervisor.
A knowledge base article posted by VMware outlined the End Of General Availability of the Free vSphere Hypervisor. As part of the transition of perpetual licensing to new subscription offerings, the VMware vSphere Hypervisor (Free Edition) has been marked as EOGA (End of General Availability). Currently, there is not an equivalent replacement product available.
For further details regarding the affected products and this change, Certero encourage customers to review the following blog post: https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2024/01/22/vmware-end-of-availability-of-perpetual-licensing-and-saas-services/
RansomHouse gang automates VMware ESXi attacks with new MrAgent Tool
The RansomHouse ransomware operation has created a new tool named 'MrAgent' that automates the deployment of its data encrypter across multiple VMware ESXi hypervisors.
Ransomware groups target ESXi servers because they deploy and serve virtual computers that typically hold valuable data that can be used in the subsequent extortion process. Also, ESXi servers often run critical applications and services for businesses, including databases and email servers, so the operational disruption from the ransomware attack is maximized. Mr Agent’s core function is to identify the host system, turn off its firewall, and then automate the ransomware deployment process across multiple hypervisors simultaneously, compromising all managed VMs.
The sample was first discovered by researcher Florian Roth, while MalwareHunterTeam was the first to tweet about it in September 2023.
Autodesk announces price increase on software solutions
As of 7th February 2024, Autodesk has increased the price across many of its software products. New annual subscriptions will incur a 2.6% price increase and renewals will have an increase of 7.7%. However, Autodesk has stated that there are some key improvements coming soon. Most notably:
Oracle Updates
Oracle Autonomous Database adds AI conversation support
As AI innovations flood the market, Oracle are continuing to hear from their customers the challenges posed by needing to decipher all the jargon, learn new tools or even move their data to where the AI tools are. This is why Oracle have embedded AI into their full-stack, including Oracle databases, so customers don’t need to take their data to gain AI capabilities.
With this goal in mind, Oracle are introducing several enhancements to Oracle Autonomous Database including cutting-edge innovations for integrating AI and advanced machine learning into your applications. These intuitive and easy-to-use enhancements include:
Combined, these enhancements to Autonomous Database reflect Oracle’s ongoing commitment to provide their customers with the tools they need to integrate AI and ML into their applications, allowing them to quickly gain insights from data and make timely business decisions. These new innovations are all built directly into Autonomous Database, making it easy for any customer to immediately take advantage of them.
Change to Oracle’s Authorized Cloud Environment Policy
We have seen changes to Oracle's Authorized Cloud Environment policy which seem to have reverted to the policy effective from 23rd January 2018 by removing the version which was effective from 1st December 2021.
Oracle have removed the following wording “the maximum available vCPUs of an instance type” when it comes to licensing Oracle programs in an Authorized Cloud Environment.
Oracle have amended all use of “multi-threading of processor cores is enabled” and replaced it with “hyper-threading is enabled”. These changes are applicable to the licensing on both Amazon (AWS & RDS) & Microsoft (Azure) platforms.
Oracle have made further changes in respect of Oracle Linux, where the wording has changed from two VMs whose combined size are no more than 64 vCPUs are counted as a single Oracle Linux Basic Limited or Premier Limited system in Authorized Cloud Environments. A single VM consisting of more than 64 vCPUs is counted as an Oracle Linux Basic or Premier system. Oracle have replaced it with each Authorized Cloud Environment instance is counted as a “System”. “Basic Limited” and “Premier Limited” support is not available for Authorized Cloud Environment instances greater than eight Amazon vCPUs or eight Azure vCPUs.
Customers should review their usage of Amazon & Microsoft Azure environments and understand the implications of Oracles change in wording. The Oracle document referenced is for educational purposes only and provides guidelines regarding Oracle's policies in effect as of 23rd January 2018.
In short if any customer has applied the wording from the Policy written in the document Dated 1st December 2021, then they will now require reverting to the previous wording which was implemented previously on 23rd January 2018 and understand any implications.
Oracle introduce non-cancellable multi-year subscription Java contracts to cover non-compliance.
As customers will be aware, Oracle changed the way in which they charge customers for the use of “Chargeable” Java products. The change requires all employees to be licensed for Java, not just those using it.
Under audit terms Oracle would potentially charge for the back dated period in which the license software was used as well as the next 12 months. However, Certero has been made aware that oracles negotiations are moving toward multi-year contracts to cover future use rather than for the period the licensed software has been used. This protects Oracles future revenue as there would be no financial benefit from moving away from Oracle Java once the 7- or 10-year non-cancellable contracts have been implemented. Oracles offerings include:
Now is the time for customers to understand their current Java usage, and Certero is best placed to assist because our Certero for Oracle Java module is an Oracle verified Third Party Tool. This gives customers the confidence that the data Certero builds can help defend against any external audit, or help verify where ‘chargeable’ versions of Java are located so they can take remedial action (where applicable).
Where customers are subscribing under the previous Java SE Subscription model (which is based on actual usage) then Certero’s Java module can help validate a customer’s requirements, so Oracle can’t intimidate customers into moving to the Java SE Universal Subscription model.
IBM Updates
IBM i Subscriptions
What is it: The IBM i is the Operating System, database, middleware, security, and hypervisor stack of software that is licensed as a single solution for IBM Power servers. Note that IBM i is an OS stack and is different to iSeries which are servers.
IBM i is licensed via a user/processor metric, there is some nuance to this detailed here. Additionally IBM i is also licensed according to software Tiers (P05, P10, P20, P30, and P40), these broadly scale according to the specifications of the server, going smallest to largest – a useful overview of these can be found here.
What’s Changed: IBM i has been undergoing a ‘Business Transformation’ over the past two years that in effect aims to move customers from perpetual licenses to subscriptions. Over the past two weeks IBM has published several iterations of an FAQ document that of the time of writing states that from May the 7th for any new P05 and P10 Tiered servers, only subscription licensing will be made available. There are various exceptions for transferring what are referred to as ‘non-expiring licenses’ (i.e. perpetual licenses) to other servers and stipulations for LPARs as well as backup servers that are detailed in the document.
Current pricing indicates that the TCO for perpetual vs subscription licensing are almost inline with each other, but like a number of publishers in recent years its expected annual price increases will change this. Its also expected that IBM will want to target the other IBM i software tiers, its probable they want to gauge pushback from customers with smaller setups before targeting the larger ones.