Veeam

Veeam Enterprise Plus Edition Promo

Effective October 15, 2020 until December 31, 2020, Veeam Enterprise Plus Edition is available for 20% off the price list, if you are upgrading your existing Veeam backup product to Enterprise Plus edition. This includes features such as:

  • Powerful Network Attached Storage (NAS) backup
  • Built-in Wide area network (WAN) Acceleration
  • Backup from Storage Snapshots
  • Scale out Backup Repository™

For more information on the Veeam Enterprise Plus Edition promotion, please visit: https://www.veeam.com/upsell-promo-emea.html.

Please contact us for more information.

Veeam

Veeam Backup Starter and Essentials: Promo and Licensing Changes

Effective October 1, 2020, all former Veeam Backup Starter customers are automatically being migrated to Veeam Backup Essentials (VBE) as Veeam ends the sale of Veeam Backup Starter.

Effective October 1, 2020 until December 31, 2020, all former Starter customers can extend their newly migrated VBE subscription up to five years at a 50% savings. Additionally, Starter customers may also expand their new VBE subscription up to 50 instances at 50% off.

Veeam Backup Essentials (VBE) is a solution designed for small businesses which delivers powerful, affordable and easy to use backup, recovery, monitoring and reporting for virtual workloads, including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper V and Nutanix AHV, as well as physical and cloud workloads ― from a single console.

Effective October 1, 2020, the minimum purchase requirement of Veeam Backup Essentials (VBE) will be reduced from ten (10) to five (5) Veeam Universal Licenses (VUL).

For more information on the migration for Veeam Backup Starter customers, please visit: https://www.veeam.com/veeam-backup-starter-essentials-faq.html.

Please contact us for more information.

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Azure Defender

Microsoft Defender products consolidated into Microsoft 365 Defender and Microsoft Azure Defender

Effective September 22, 2020, Microsoft are consolidating their threat protection products under the Microsoft Defender brand, delivering two experiences: Microsoft 365 Defender for end-user environments, and Azure Defender for cloud and hybrid infrastructures.

Microsoft 365 Defender prevents, detects and responds to threats across identities, endpoints, cloud apps, email and documents in end-user environments, and consists of the following rebranded products:

  • Microsoft 365 Defender (previously Microsoft Threat Protection)
  • Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (previously Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection)
  • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (previously Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection)
  • Microsoft Defender for Identity (previously Azure Advanced Threat Protection)

Azure Defender delivers capabilities to protect multi-cloud and hybrid workloads including virtual machines, databases, containers and Internet of Things (IoT), and is an evolution of the Azure Security Center threat protection capabilities, consisting of:

  • Azure Defender for Servers (previously Azure Security Center Standard Edition)
  • Azure Defender for IoT (previously Azure Security Center for IoT)
  • Azure Defender for SQL (previously Advanced Threat Protection for SQL)

For more information, please find the announcement here: https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/?p=91813.

For further details, please watch the explanation video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klGmsu3LK4M&feature=youtu.be.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams Rooms available

Effective October 1, 2020, Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard and Premium Device Subscription Licenses (SLs) are available. Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard and Premium was previously referred to as Meeting Room and Managed Meeting Rooms.

Microsoft Teams Rooms allows you to Teams-enable your conference room, creating the ability to easily join a scheduled conference or start an ad hoc meeting.

The Teams Rooms subscription covers access to Microsoft Teams, Phone System, Audio Conferencing, Microsoft Intune.

The September 2020 Online Services Terms (OST) explain, that only CACD may be licensed through Teams Rooms: A Common Area Communication Device (“CACD”) is a device shared by multiple users who do not log into the device with their Office 365 credentials and which supports calls, meetings and/or conferencing over voice, Voice over IP, and/or video. Microsoft’s Common Area Phone and Meeting Room offerings are Device SLs that may only be assigned to a CACD. Each CACD Licensed Device may be accessed and used by any number of users.

Teams Rooms devices are offered by Creston, HP/Poly, Lenovo, Logitech and other manufacturers. They are managed in the Teams Admin Center. Instead of managing Teams Rooms devices themselves, customers can delegate such management and monitoring to Microsoft by obtaining a Teams Rooms Premium Device Subscription License (DSL).

Note that with the old approach Managed Meeting Rooms is an add-on to Meeting Room, whereas the new approach Teams Rooms Premium offers a superset of the Standard edition.

For the original announcement, please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/07/21/microsoft-teams-meetings-hybrid-workplace-options/.

For further information on Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard and Premium, please visit: https://rooms.microsoft.com/.

For an introductory video, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4N-Z6mT09Q.

Please visit the Teams devices catalog for a complete list of Teams Rooms devices: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/across-devices/devices/category?devicetype=20.

Microsoft SharePoint Syntex

Microsoft SharePoint Syntex available

Effective October 1, 2020, Microsoft SharePoint Syntex, the first product from Project Cortex, is available.

Microsoft SharePoint Syntex uses advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine teaching to amplify human expertise, automate content processing, and transform content into knowledge. It consists, inter alia, of Digital image processing, Document understanding, Form processing, Microsoft Graph content connectors and Taxonomy services.

For further information, please find the announcement here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/project-cortex-blog/announcing-sharepoint-syntex/ba-p/1681139.

For a product overview, please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/sharepoint-syntex-overview.

Oracle Java

Oracle Java 15 available

Effective September 15, 2020, Oracle Java 15 is generally available.

Version 15 adds new features to improve developer productivity and security. Furthermore, there is improved maintainability and stability, whilst Sealed Classes enhance the Java programming language.

For further information on the release of Oracle Java 15 and its further improvements, please visit: https://www.oracle.com/emea/news/announcement/oracle-announces-java-15-2020-09-15.html.

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure Cost Management enables Amazon Web Services (AWS) connector

Effective September 1, 2020, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) connector for Microsoft Azure Cost Management is available for all customers.

This new connector enables customers to easily analyze their Microsoft Azure and AWS spend from the Microsoft Azure Management Portal. There is no cost for the connector for the first 90 days, and thereafter Microsoft Azure Cost Management for AWS is charged at 1% of the total AWS managed spend.

For the announcement and instructions for setting up and using the AWS connector in Microsoft Azure Cost Management, please visit: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/connector-for-aws-in-azure-cost-management-billing-is-now-generally-available/.

Microsoft Calling Plan, Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Calling Plan in additional countries available

Effective October 1, 2020, Microsoft Calling Plan is available in the following new markets: Austria, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. If you want your users to be able to call regular phones using Microsoft Teams, and you do not already have a service provider to make voice calls, you can buy a Calling Plan.

All Calling Plan features are available for Microsoft’s Domestic and International Calling Plans, including the 120, 240, and 1,200 minute per user per month (p/u/m) Domestic plans, and the International Plan with 1,200 domestic minutes p/u/m and 600 international minutes p/u/m.

The offer has already been available in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Puerto Rico (limited to Enterprise Agreement (EA) and Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES) only), Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States (third-party Calling Plan availability in Australia and Japan).

For more help on how to choose the right Calling Plan, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/calling-plan-landing-page.

For Luxembourg, we recommend using Microsoft Teams Direct Routing instead. Please contact us for further details.

Microsoft Teams, Promotions

Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing available for free

Available from October 1, 2020 until January 31, 2021, Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing can be acquired for free for Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers until the end of their enrollment as long as there is at least 20% Microsoft Teams Meetings adoption withing the first six months.

Furthermore, effective October 1, 2020 until March 31, 2021, Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing is available for free for 12 months through Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) and by Web Direct customers (without Microsoft Teams Meetings adoption requirement).

Audio Conferencing in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 enables users to call in to meetings from their phones. It is especially helpful for participants, who do not have reliable internet access and allows up to 250 phone attendees.

Those offers are available worldwide with exceptions of China and India.

For the announcement and details on the offers, please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/09/08/3-deals-meeting-calling-experiences-microsoft-teams/.

For more information on Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/audio-conferencing-in-office-365.

Microsoft Teams, Promotions

Microsoft Teams Advanced Communications promotion available

Effective September 8, 2020 until January 31, 2021, Microsoft Teams Advanced Communications is available for 35% off the price list. This promotion is eligible worldwide for customers with Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) and paid Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license with Microsoft Teams as long as there is at least 20% Microsoft Teams Meetings adoption within the first six months.

Advanced Communications is an add-on for Microsoft Teams. It provides calling and meeting capabilities that include large meetings, meeting customization, communications integrations and workflows, and tools to manage your organization’s communications policies.

Microsoft also announced broader availability for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) and Web Direct customers to be coming soon.

For the announcement and details on the offer, please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/09/08/3-deals-meeting-calling-experiences-microsoft-teams/.

For more information on Microsoft Teams Advanced Communications, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-add-on-licensing/advanced-communications.

Experts in Enterprise Software Licensing