Azure DEV/TEST pricing in CSP

[MartijnElfers]

Hello,

Is there any information or insights regarding the availability of Azure Dev/Test pricing in CSP? Is this something on the roadmap?

[MartijnElfers · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

During the last Licensing Update (May 27th) provided by the great Louise Ulrick, it was noted that Dev/Test pricing is indeed not available for CSP yet. She shared that it's on the roadmap for in the future. Hopefully we get more information from Microsoft soon! 

Link to call, statement around time stamp 45:00. 

https://commercial_licensing.eventbuilder.com/event/15140/occurrence/13780/recording?rauth=58.856778.30e13c058a89d7e71bf1f186d253eab3d4719bb43a919177a385fa39f0eb6a58

[Mazime]

Hi Janosch, 

I'm following this thread as well because I just had a request from a customer regarding buying Virtual machines in dev/test. I do not get your point regarding the CSP Visual studio subscription, since the CSP can sell these subscription.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/subscriptions/vscloud-csp

[JanoschUlmer]

Hi @Mazime :

The Visual Studio Monthly subscriptions available in CSP are not eligible to use Dev/Test Azure offerings: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/pricing/ 

[Mazime]

I had missed this information, thanks a lot for the clarification, 

[harryM]

Hi Janosch, 

As CSPs we offer many services to our clients around Azure and CSP in general, I have found myself here as I have a customer who has an Azure subcription with me on CSP and wants to do some test and dev, but cannot understand why MS won't allow them to manage both under CSP and is insisting that the Dev/Test goes through a credit card. Additional services we offer around this would be a complete billing relationship as there are backend office costs to having multiple suppliers, we also have a huge amount of Azure services around discover, plan, build and manage services. In this instance we would be offering the end client project management support and utilisation of our Azure Architects and specialists. 

Thanks

Harry

[JanoschUlmer]

Thank you for the feedback. 

For this customer, where would they get the Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions from? You know, in order to leverage Dev/Test offering each user needs to have Visual Studio subscription, which is also not available in CSP.

I received feedback reg. general plans - it is considered to have this in CSP, but considered means there is no final decision and no concrete roadmap or ETA as of now.

[IXS_SJackson]

Can we not resell an appropriate version of Visual Studio through the Open licensing program for such scenarios?

We provide similar offers to those mentioned above by HarryM, and it is always a challenging conversation to talk about having to pay more for Azure resources, or buy a subset of their Microsoft licensing using a Credit Card.

[JanoschUlmer]

Yes, this would of course work (until end of 2021, since Open License will be discontinued then, Open Value/OVS will stay longer), but Dev/Test subscriptions still need to come as PAYG or EA. Note that customer can also request to pay via invoice for PAYG subscriptions if they have a certain minimum consumption.

[Wilfried]

Hi Janosch,

I am following this threat with a lot of interest. E.g. we have a customer that is consuming 50-60% of his ACR with DEV/Test Subscriptions in EA at the moment. As a service provider we integrated our ITSM completely with his Azure DevOps stack so our Ops-part is generally consumed by all subscriptions (patching, error resolution, etc.) but the more complicated tasks come from the DEV/Test Subscriptions as there is a lot of action going on there. Due to the fact that we deliver the complete ops service (=value add) the customer was interested and willing to shift Azure Consumption from EA commitment to CSP via us. The process was supported by Microsoft Sales and Partner Management but at the end we had to stop this initiative. Our Partnermanager is in discussion of this topic with colleagues and the responsible Manager on global level - I can bring you in contact if you want. 

Generally the Microsoft AMP Initiative could get much more support by exising service providers if they could compensate their DC Operation incomes with Enterprise Customers (EA) through CSP. At the moment this excludes the DEV/TEST portion which can be quite significant and a show stopper...

BR, Wilfried

[JanoschUlmer]

Interesting. What was the plan reg. the Visual Studio Enterprise Subscriptions for this customer? So, even when Dev/Test azure would have been available via CSP, how would the customer license the required Visual Studio Enterprise Subscriptions?

If your PDM is discussing this on global level already, there is probably not much I can add to this - with this concrete business impact they are much more able to influence future discussion on this than me. If they seek for a contact to the CSP program team, you can tell them they can reach out to me.

[Lewis-H]

All Windows and Windows Server Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, App Service, Logic Apps and HDInsight are discounted off your normal Enterprise Agreement rates. The Dev/Test rate on these services is equal to the rate for a Linux virtual machine of the same size and type. For example:

A Windows Server/Medium (A2)/Basic Instance virtual machine is billed at the Linux/Medium (A2)/Basic Instance virtual machine rate
A Websites/Large (L)/Standard is billed at the Linux/Large (A3)/Standard Instance virtual machine rate
A HDInsight Head Node (on an Extra Large A4 instance) is billed at the Linux/Extra Large (A4)/Standard Instance virtual machine rate
Logic Apps Enterprise Connection is billed at 50% of published pricing
Access to Windows 10 and Windows Virtual Desktop service

You can run Windows 10 images on Azure for dev/test using this offer. You can also access the Windows Virtual Desktop service within your DevTest subscription to simplify the management experience of your Windows VMs and easily deploy and scale your development and test environments all while enjoying special discounts.

No additional charge for using Visual Studio software

There is no additional charge for the software included with your Visual Studio subscription that you run for development and testing on Azure Windows Server virtual machines, such as SQL Server. You can also use preconfigured virtual machine images, such as SQL Server and BizTalk Server, without incurring software charges. Alternatively, upload your own virtual machine with software from your Visual Studio subscription. You will only be charged at the discounted VM rate.

On this Enterprise Dev/Test subscription, you can use the software covered by your Visual Studio subscription for development and testing. Microsoft server software products that are supported on Azure Virtual Machines are listed here.

Any taxes which may result from receiving services at no charge are the sole responsibility of the recipient.

How to set up an Azure subscription based on this offer

Enterprise Agreement customers have one or more people in the role of Enterprise Administrator, who can access the Azure Enterprise Portal. Enterprise Administrators add users called Account Owners to their agreement via the Azure Enterprise Portal. These Account Owners have the ability to create Azure subscriptions under the EA. The Enterprise Admin needs to check a box under the “Dev/Test” column for an Account Owner so that they have the ability to create Azure subscriptions based on the Enterprise Dev/Test offer. The Account Owner creates subscriptions via the Azure Account Portal, and then should add active Visual Studio subscribers as co-administrators so that they can manage and use the resources needed for development and testing.

[Wilfried]

Hi Lewis-H,

thanks for the explanation - but it seems to be valid for an Azure Customer under EA.

Any Idea how to handle dev/test subscriptions when migrating a customer from EA to CSP? 

thx, W.

[JanoschUlmer]

@Wilfried : Until this may become available, the only option would be that the customer get PAYG Dev/Test directly. So he would need to sign up via credit card, but he can also decide to request to pay via invoice after that.

And when Dev/Test then gets available in CSP, they  cancel the PAYG offer and move their services to a new  CSP subscription.

[JSiebenthalCC]

@JanoschUlmer , I'm coming to this thread as a customer of a vendor that provides a CSP subscription to us.  I understand that this forum is provided for Microsoft partners, so I apologize if I'm not posting in the correct place, as we're not a partner.  However, I'm hoping a customer's perspective will add some value. 

Our CSP vendor already provides us an Azure subscription for our production needs.  We have 5 developers on staff and we all have Visual Studio subscriptions (pro).  Those were purchased through a separate EA vendor.  We've asked our CSP vendor to provision a Dev/Test subscription tied to the same tenant as our existing subscription but it sounds like that is not possible.   We would like to keep our Visual Studio Azure subscriptions for the developers for R&D purposes and use a Dev/Test subscription for architected development solutions.  This is actually Microsoft recommendation: Enterprise Dev/Test | Microsoft Azure (under the FAQ).  I'm disappointed to find that my only solution is to purchase a pay-as-you-go subscription.  I also sympathize with the CSP partners posting here as, if I were in their situation, this would be very frustrating to not be able to provide Dev/Test subscriptions to their customers. 

[MartijnElfers · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

During the last Licensing Update (May 27th) provided by the great Louise Ulrick, it was noted that Dev/Test pricing is indeed not available for CSP yet. She shared that it's on the roadmap for in the future. Hopefully we get more information from Microsoft soon! 

Link to call, statement around time stamp 45:00. 

https://commercial_licensing.eventbuilder.com/event/15140/occurrence/13780/recording?rauth=58.856778.30e13c058a89d7e71bf1f186d253eab3d4719bb43a919177a385fa39f0eb6a58

[mhunady]

any news?

[JanoschUlmer]

@mhunady : When there are news to share, you'll find them here: Partner Center announcements - Partner Center | Microsoft Learn

[koulela]

Azure Test/Dev subscriptions in CSP has been on the roadmap for over a year. We really need an update for all our customers on when this will be available, giving us a link and asking us to check Partner news everyday isn't very helpful for our customers or your partners. Is there even an estimated timeframe for this functionality?

[JanoschUlmer]

@koulela : No estimate I can mention as of today. Also internally projected timelines have changed to often for various reasons to be more specific.

I agree that checking the Partner Center announcement each day is not useful - but not checking them once a week or at least once a month would be not good as well since this includes many important updates for CSP Partners that would be otherwise missed. 

[IJ]

Any news on this?

[MartijnElfers]

Unfortunately, no news regarding this. Was hoping it would've already be available, but nothing yet as far as I can tell

[Gottfrid]

Is it still in the roadmap to offer DEV/TEST pricing through CSPs?