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May 2024 announcements

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This page provides the announcements for Microsoft Partner Center for May 2024.

Monthly Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program update: What's new for Solutions Partner designations, specializations, and other offerings and benefits

We're introducing important capabilities, offers, and updates to improve the way partners can further differentiate their deep technical expertise across a set of priority scenarios with high customer demand.

  • Date: May 31, 2024
  • Workspace: Membership
  • Impacted audience: Partners enrolled in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program

What's available now

  • Solutions Partner* with certified software** designation now generally available

    On March 20, we announced the general availability of Solutions Partner* with certified software** designations. For independent software vendors (ISVs), certified software designations provide an opportunity to become Solutions Partners within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program and to better connect with customers and to unlock more benefits from Microsoft. These designations differentiate partners' software solutions in areas of high demand and help customers identify trusted solutions. Solutions Partner* with certified software** designations are available for qualifying cloud software solutions. When partners become a Solutions Partner* with certified software**, they signify to customers that their solution meets technical criteria for interoperability with the Microsoft Cloud and that it demonstrates a proven track record of customer success. All partners can now sign in to Partner Center in the Referrals workspace to check their progress, apply for the designations, and unlock the new benefits.

  • Infrastructure and migration specialization audit update for renewing partners

    Based on feedback that we received from partners, we adjusted the audit requirements. We also added an alternate path for eligible partners seeking to renew their specialization where an audit is required.

    Review the audit checklist for specifics regarding this update. If you have questions regarding the audit, reach out to azureas@microsoft.com.

  • ISV Success renewal: ISV Success is introducing the renewal of ISV Success benefits effective March 4. A partner can renew another 12 months of ISV Success Build and Publish. The option to renew it will become available to eligible partners 30 days before to the end date of the current benefit package. Eligibility is based on account verification, billing profile creation, and publication status. Eligibility can be confirmed in Partner Center under the Membership offers page. For more details, visit the Partner Center documentation on ISV Success.

What's to come

  • An update on the Solutions Partner for Support Services designation: On March 20, we announced in the 2024 State of the Partner Ecosystem, that partners with a Solutions Partner for Support Services designation will soon receive exclusive new benefits. These benefits include paid support agreement pricing and access to a knowledge-based library of curated materials designed to help partners resolve incidents quickly and efficiently, in addition to customer-facing badging. General availability and other details will come later this year.
  • SMB paths for Data & AI (Azure), Digital & App Innovation (Azure), Infrastructure (Azure) and Security: We also announced on March 20 that the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program will soon have small and medium business (SMB) paths for Solutions Partner designations for Data & AI (Azure), Digital & App Innovation (Azure), Infrastructure (Azure), and Security. With the SMB paths launching in a few months, now is the time to start preparing to qualify. Details for the Security SMB path will be released soon. Learn more about the qualifications for the Azure solution areas today.
  • Business Central certification in skilling for Business Applications partner capability score: Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Business Central Developer Associate certification was introduced in April 2024 and is available to partners now. Any partner who attains or has already attained the certification earns points in the advanced skilling subcategory. We're delayed in adding the certification to the partner capability score for Business Applications. We'll provide updates as soon as it's added to the partner capability score.
  • Azure bulk credits modernization: Partner Center grants Azure credits benefit to partners upon the purchase of partner program offers such as Microsoft Action Pack, Legacy Silver, Legacy Gold, Solutions partner designation, and so on. The current Azure credits benefit redemption process is complex. The modernization project simplifies the redemption process by eliminating the current process of assigning Azure credits to individuals and instead allowing partners to do a direct deposit of Azure credits on their organization's billing account with MCA agreement and billing profile on the new commerce stack.

Reminders

  • If you're renewing an Azure specialization for the second year, then an audit is required for reenrollment. Review the updated checklist and plan accordingly. You'll be able to start scheduling your audits 60 days ahead of your anniversary date for the specialization.
  • If you're renewing your Modern Work specialization or Security specialization for the second year, then customer references are required for reenrollment. Please start to prep these references ahead of your anniversary date. You'll be able to load your customer references into Partner Center 60 days ahead of the anniversary date of the specialization.
  • Microsoft moved all partner program transactions to the new commerce platform. For more details, see Link billing account and profile to Partner Center account.

Next steps

May 2024 legacy Azure RI price list republished to remove retired reservation SKUs

We're announcing that the price list has been republished with the retired reservation SKUs removed.

  • Date: May 27, 2024
  • Workspace: Pricing
  • Impacted audience: Cloud Solution Provider partners (indirect providers and direct bill) in all markets

This announcement is to inform partners that all legacy Azure reserved instance (RI) price lists published to date included retired reservation stock keeping unit (SKUs). To avoid confusion, we removed the reservation SKUs with no purchase option and republished the price list.

Monthly update: Important actions partners need to take to secure the partner ecosystem

Important capabilities and updates to improve your security posture and protect your customers' tenants are now available.

  • Date: May 17, 2024
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Direct bill partners, indirect providers, and indirect resellers transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program and with advisors.

Last November, we announced our Secure Future Initiative (SFI), which brought every part of Microsoft together to combat the increasing scale and sophistication of cyberattacks and advance cybersecurity protection across new products and legacy infrastructures. For more detailed information, read Charlie Bell’s recent blog post. "We're making security our top priority at Microsoft, above all else - over all other features" and as a result, we're implementing immediate and future changes that have the potential to affect some of our partners, and in some instances with very little notice. In the next few days and months, we'll send notifications that might require you to act quickly to help close security vulnerabilities.

MFA implementation

Starting July 2024, Microsoft is requiring Multifactor authentication (MFA) for all Azure users. For more information, visit this blog.

Available now

  • Security workspace in Partner Center – Starting May 2024, partner’s Admin Agent is able to access the Security workspace in Partner Center, which is a centralized platform that helps partners evaluate their security situation and take the required actions to enhance their security posture. The workspace makes the user experience easier, provide learning resources, and serve as a single place for all security-related matters in Partner Center.
  • Remove Global Administrator role – Partners can now use the new filter "Having Global Administrator" to display Granular Delegated Admin Privileges (GDAP)s that have the Global Administrator role. This feature allows partners to remove Global Administrator role against an active admin relationship along with access assignments.
  • Depict zero or no access assignments – displays a warning icon next to an Admin relationship having no access assignments, informing the partner to act.

Coming soon

Releasing newer version of Security Alert API: Microsoft Graph Security Alerts API V1 (full) version will be released on July 31, 2024, providing a unified API gateway across Microsoft services. CSP partners must start to use this new API, as the existing Azure fraud notification API will be deprecated by the end of 2024. The preview (beta) version of the Microsoft Graph Security Alerts API will be available on May 31, 2024.

For more information, see Detect and respond to security alerts.

Reminders

Next steps

  1. Review the securing the channel journey map to navigate the transformational journey for partners to Zero Trust.
  2. Strengthen your security posture and navigate the evolving threat landscape with Microsoft cybersecurity tools and resources.
  3. Sign up for dedicated CSP Technical Training to have your queries answered by subject matter experts.
  4. Find guidance and resources in securing the partner and customer ecosystems partner readiness gallery.

May Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) monthly updates and community reminder

Monthly views are now published including the updated partner launch calendars, the CSP Bimonthly Update newsletter, along with CSP community resources that provide you with essential program updates.

  • Date: May 7, 2024
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct bill partners and indirect providers

Always available—Launch content on demand

For a consolidated view of all recent and active launches in a single place, visit the partner launch calendars collection. You can find a timeline for each launch and links to published materials to help you learn more about that launch.

The downloadable CSP Bimonthly Update newsletter, which aggregates recent CSP announcements, updates, events, and reminders in an easy-to-read document.

Partner Journey Maps provide detailed navigation along the journey of Microsoft's highest priority transformations.

Need licensing readiness? The monthly CSP spotlight webinars cover the latest CSP licensing information available for all partners.

CSP Community Q&A reminder

The monthly CSP community Q&A session provides you with an opportunity to learn more and ask questions about changes affecting the program.

Register here to join upcoming calls.

Next steps

Review the Partner Launch Calendar, monthly newsletter, and register for upcoming Community Q&A calls.

Questions?

The monthly CSP community Q&A call is the best place to bring questions about operational change in the CSP program. You can submit a question up to 48 hours before the call.

Questions on any other CSP topic? Visit the Partner Center support page.

Enhanced revenue dashboard and reporting is now available for commercial marketplace partners

We improved the revenue report to help you get more insights around invoicing, payment status and more.

  • Date: May 8, 2024
  • Workspace: Insights
  • Impacted audience: Partners enrolled in Commercial marketplace

The revenue dashboard under commercial marketplace insights helps partners to track and reconcile their revenue with usage, order, earnings, and customer reports.

Top features of this release are:

  • Intuitive and enhanced user experience
  • Insights around "collection in progress" amount
  • Insights around offers, plans, and customers
  • Details around adjustment, resellers, invoicing, and restatements are available in a downloadable report

Next steps

For more information, see Revenue dashboard.

Incentives users can create support ticket from the Earnings workspace

  • Date: May 6, 2024
  • Workspace: Earnings
  • Impacted audience: All incentive users and admins in Microsoft incentive programs

If you need help for the Earnings workspace pages and downloads (for example, earnings, payment, revenue/usage reconciliation data), you can create a support ticket from the Earnings workspace.

In the Help + Support menu, in Workspace, select Earnings. In Topic, select either Earnings (Incentives), Reports (Incentives), or Revenue (Incentives).

These options are no longer available from the Incentives workspace.

Screenshot of the Help+Support menu option: Topic, with Earnings (Incentives) selected.

View the latest promotions and offers

The latest Global Promo Readiness Guide is now available.

  • Date: May 6, 2024
  • Workspace: Pricing
  • Impacted audience: Partners transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program

The latest Global Promo Readiness Guide, a consolidated view of all current and upcoming promotions, is now available in the Operations Readiness resource gallery. See active and upcoming promotions and offers at the Global Promo Readiness Guide collection.

Next steps

  • Review the latest monthly Promo Guide in the Operations Readiness resource gallery.
  • Share this information with the appropriate contacts in your organization, and let us know if the guide is helpful by responding to the "Was this page helpful?" question at the bottom of the page.

Questions?

Improved user experience for co-op management pages under Incentives in Partner Center

We updated these pages to improve the experience and to unify the design flow across multiple pages.

  • Date: May 6, 2024
  • Workspace: Incentives
  • Impacted audience: All partners participating in Microsoft incentive programs

To improve the experience, we've made the following changes:

  • A new search feature in the grid
  • Filtering capability through Side panel and Filter Pills
  • Improved accessibility, pagination, sorting features
  • Improved the navigation between pages
  • Improved loading times

When you first open the page, the page shows data from the last 30 days. After the page is loaded, you can change this setting to see more data.

May 2024 new commerce license-based price list republished to correct a column name

Download the republished May new commerce license-based price list to see the corrected column name.

  • Date: May 2, 2024
  • Workspace: Pricing
  • Impacted audience: Cloud Solution Provider partners (indirect providers and direct bill) in all markets

The May new commerce license-based price list published on May 1, 2024, has a column named "ERPPrice" (no space), which is different from the standard column header "ERP Price" (with space). We republished the price list to correct the column name to the standard. Data remains unchanged due to this republication.

Launching Extended Security Updates (ESUs) for SQL Server 2014

To help customers on SQL Server 2014 stay secure while planning for a transition to more modern solutions, partners and hosters will be able to offer Extended Security Updates (ESUs) for SQL Server 2014.

  • Date: May 1, 2024
  • Workspace: Pricing
  • Impacted audience: Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners, CSP-Hosters, and Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) partners

SQL Server 2014 will reach the end of its 10-year product lifecycle on July 9, 2024. This end-of-support milestone is an opportunity to help customers modernize their IT estate to Azure.

To provide customers with flexibility to stay secure while planning for the transition, Microsoft announced ESUs for SQL Server 2014. These updates offer up to three years of critical security updates.

Our Cloud partners and CSP-Hosters will be able to offer ESUs for SQL Server 2014. Customers will then have the right to use licenses covered by ESUs on deployments on-premises or within outsourced environments running on Authorized Outsourcers. Customers can also apply ESU licenses to "license-included" workloads acquired from SPLA partners or CSP-Hosters.

CSP-Hoster partners will also be able to provide hosted fulfillment of SQL Server 2014 that is supported by corresponding ESU licenses purchased as license included or bring-your-license (BYOL). More details are included in the ESU FAQ.

Two offerings on ESUs

The hero offering is ESUs for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc. Azure Arc provides visibility of customers' entire SQL estate, automates repeatable updates and patches, and can enhance security and data governance with Azure services. The offering is for a monthly subscription, which automatically stops when customers migrate or upgrade. The SKUs for Azure Arc ESUs for SQL Server 2014 will be available in CSP on May 1, 2024.

In addition, volume licensing SKUs of ESUs for SQL Server 2014 will become available in the CSP catalog on June 1, 2024. This offering provides coverage for customers who have SQL Server/CAL licensing model or customers from regulated industries where internet connectivity might be a constraint. Also, the volume licensing option allows customers to purchase ESUs at an annual billing cycle.

For both offerings, Extended Security Updates are made available if needed, once a security vulnerability is discovered and is rated as Critical by the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). There's no regular release cadence for Extended Security Updates. The coverage period of Extended Security Updates follows Fixed Lifecycle Policy of SQL Server 2014. Extended Security Updates Year 1 for SQL Server 2014 starts on July 10, 2024 and ends on July 8, 2025. Purchases made before July 10, 2024 will be billed in the billing period of purchase.

ESU eligibility requirements

Customers will require a Software Assurance (SA) or an equivalent subscription to be eligible to buy the associated ESU. Perpetual licenses only don't qualify.

However, a customer doesn't require SA or subscription to utilize ESUs with license-included services purchased from CSP-Hosters.

Planned ESU pricing

Note

Actual launch pricing might vary slightly.

ESUs enabled by Azure Arc
SKU Price (yearly)
Enterprise edition - ESU 2014 – two Core pack $12,964.80
Standard edition - ESU 2014 – two Core pack $3,328.80
Volume Licensing SKUs of ESUs
SKU Price (yearly)
ESU for SQL 2014 EE 2 Core pack for 1st year EOS (July 2024 -July2025) $15,122.14
ESU for SQL 2014 EE 2 Core pack for 2nd year EOS (July 2025 - July 2026) $15,122.14
ESU for SQL 2014 EE 2 Core pack for 3rd year EOS (July 2026 -July 2027) $15,122.14
ESU for SQL 2014 Std 2 Core pack for 1st year EOS (July 2023 -July 2024) $3,944.56
ESU for SQL 2014 Std 2 Core pack for 2nd year EOS (July 2024 -July 2025) $3,944.56
ESU for SQL 2014 Std 2 Core pack for 3rd year EOS (July 2026 -July 2027) $3,944.56
ESU for SQL 2014 EE Per Server for 1st year EOS (July 2024 - July 2025) $9,449.88
ESU for SQL 2014 EE Per Server for 2nd year EOS (July 2025 - July 2026) $9,449.88
ESU for SQL 2014 EE Per Server for 3rd year EOS (July 2026 - July 2027) $9,449.88
ESU for SQL 2014 Std Per Server for 1st year EOS (July 2024 - July 2025) $986.14
ESU for SQL 2014 Std Per Server for 2nd year EOS (July 2025 - July 2026) $986.14
ESU for SQL 2014 Std Per Server for 3rd year EOS (July 2026 - July 2027) $986.14

Next steps