Guides on Licensing

Every Entra ID plan, add-on, and bundle mapped: Free vs P1 vs P2, Entra Suite savings, Governance counting traps, Workload ID, External ID, Agent 365, and full M365 inclusion tables.

EA is being phased out for smaller and mid-sized organisations. This guide compares EA, MCA-E, and CSP on cost, Azure billing, Software Assurance, and admin overhead, and how to avoid a 15-30% rise during the transition.

Microsoft 365 E7 at $99/user/month bundles E5, Copilot, Entra Suite, and Agent 365. The 15% savings look attractive, but consumption costs for building and running AI agents sit outside the per-seat price.

Microsoft Agent 365 is a governance, identity, and security layer for AI agents, GA since 1 May 2026 at $15/user/month standalone or $99 in Microsoft 365 E7. The standalone licence needs M365 E5, Defender + Purview Suite FLW, or Business Premium, and one per-user licence covers all of a person’s agents.

SPLA, CSP-Hosting, BYOL, Azure Stack HCI for Hosters: What is the right mix for IaaS that is cost-efficient and compliant at the same time? Available options and actionable advice from independent advisors.

Three ways to licence SQL Server for hosting: SPLA, BYOL, and Azure Arc. Calculation formulas for each model, Enterprise-to-Standard cost ratios, cluster discounts, passive instance rules, and the compliance mistakes auditors look for.

BizTalk Server in SPLA and BYOL: per-core licensing rules, calculation formulas, compliance requirements, and common reporting mistakes.

Microsoft Enterprise Agreement Guide for IT and procurement. Includes true-up, renewal, and negotiation advice from independent experts with 20+ years of experience.

It’s easy to forget that hosted environments’ rules differ from on-premises. You may not discount “non-production” workloads the same way as on-premises.

SPLA RDS licensing counts all authorised users, not just those actively connected. That distinction catches many providers. Covers SAL counting rules, Citrix scenarios, Office licensing, and BYOL options for remote access.

CSP Hoster is a special program for Microsoft partners providing hosting and cloud services from their datacentres. It supplements but does not replace SPLA. It allows pre-building and pre-activating virtual machines with Windows 11 and Microsoft 365 apps on hosting.

SQL Server 2022 Licensing explained in text, video, and graphics. On-premises and Azure. Clusters and containers. From basics to advanced scenarios.