Microsoft Licensing: Insights into Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)

Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) - Microsoft Volume Licensing Training??

The Cloud Solution Provider?(CSP)?is a partner-led?program, meaning?the partner sets the price, and the terms,?and takes over the end customer billing.?Furthermore, the partner directly provisions?and?manages?one’s?customer subscriptions.?This also means?they are the?single?point of contact for customer?support. If?one is?buying through a?CSP?program,?they are?purchasing?directly from a Microsoft Certified partner?who?is allowed to run support for?them.?For instance, if?one has?issues with?Microsoft 365, the partner should be able to help?them?out.?Lastly, as?it's?a single agreement,?it covers most, if not all, cloud services and software subscriptions while?including?the Microsoft Customer agreement already.?This?means?that?if?one is?signing up to?CSP,?they are?already?using the Microsoft Customer agreement.??

How does it work???

Microsoft has?many?direct partners and indirect partners. The way they built the CSP program is that if?one?is a?direct partner of?Microsoft,?they?sign a Microsoft?Partner agreement and that direct partner delivers cloud services, software, subscription,?licenses?and support to the end customer. Microsoft does require all CSP partners, direct or indirect,?to have?their customers sign the?Microsoft?Customer agreement, but?direct partners?include their own terms and conditions based on what they feel should be present in the contract with the end customer.??An?indirect?reseller?of the cloud solution provider is one that sells services?to an end?customer but?does not?provide?customer support. That responsibility lies with?an?indirect?provider?who?sells to the reseller?whilst?maintaining?a relationship with Microsoft?

With a?Microsoft Partner status, anyone can be an indirect reseller.?As there are fewer strict rules to be an indirect?reseller than to be a direct partner,?Microsoft has set up the second model?(in orange)?to allow other parties to become resellers of Microsoft software. In terms of the?Microsoft Customer agreement, one?can add?their?own?clauses for?the end customer, but the indirect provider will?add?its own pages?relating to?the reseller.??

These two models are quite important because?they?help Microsoft sell?their own?software and services in a scalable matter.?The models’ success has caused Microsoft to?increasingly focus?on?them?over the past years?leading to?their?development as a?multi-billion-dollar?business.??

Product Availability?

Although CSP is?a?very successful?model, not all?Microsoft?products are currently available.?The product terms?are?the guiding principle for showing what products are and are not available in certain?programs.?For further details?regarding?availability, examine the image below.?

Additionally,?one?can buy?many?subscriptions to on-premises products,?a new?option?in CSP?with?some different rules to?cloud subscriptions.?For desktops, the options include?Windows,?Office,?Project?&?Visio?as well as?individual Office products. Many more options exist for infrastructure, data, and?application?servers, most of which are listed in the image below.?

How to Purchase on Premise Products?

On-premise products are?bought?by?making a single upfront payment,?either?for?a one-year or?three-year?term.?If one signs up for a three-year term, there is no annual payment instead, it is just three years paid upfront.?Sadly,?there is?no software assurance?(SA)?available and?as?such, none of the SA?benefits.?

However,?they sneakily include?more?SA?benefits?into?these?server subscription licenses.??One?gets?the right to use the current version?without the?right to use future versions unless?one?buys?server subscriptions for?Azure,?which?could be either?the?Windows?or?SQL?Server, which state that one is able to have the same benefits within the server subscriptions for Azure as with a standard Windows Server license with software?assurance. Another?feature of these purchases is the ability to downgrade, which allows?any prior version?or?permitted down edition?to?be used. Lastly, these?downloads are?available?through the?Microsoft 365 Admin Center.?However, no?older versions?than N minus two?can be found, meaning?that if one?needs?an earlier version, it must be found independently.?