What you need to know about Microsoft’s Azure Plan.
As of July 21, 2021, Microsoft is now mandating its updated commerce experience for Microsoft Azure — Azure Plan. We know Azure can be complicated, and it may feel a bit daunting to hear that major changes are coming. That’s why we’ve compiled this quick article and a couple of useful resources to help you better understand the new Azure Plan.
What is Azure Plan?
To put it simply, Azure Plan optimizes and simplifies Azure purchasing, management, and operations. Azure Plan can best be described by the key benefits it provides partners:
Consolidated subscription management: Acting as a single container to house the entirety of your Azure subscriptions, partners can now simply create multiple Azure subscriptions under a single Azure Plan. That’s right — no more having to bouncing around client environments with 100 browser tabs open to do so.
Transparent, global pricing model: With thousands of unique SKUs, the pricing structure of Azure can be complex and variable. The new Azure Plan is now aligned to a single price list, in USD, providing consistent pricing across all channels at a global scale.
Cost management and optimization: By leveraging the Azure Cost Management tool, partners can easily track and control costs to prevent overspending. In other words, you’ll be able to save you and your clients money on unused resources, which is always a good thing.
The Three Phases of Change (According to Microsoft)
“There will be three phases of change to the previous Azure offer.
In phase 1, all new Azure CSP program business will be on the new Azure plan. The following guidelines will apply:
For all existing reseller relationships between partners and clients in the CSP program, the partner can continue to transact the previous Azure offer (Azure Program) and the client can continue to purchase that offer from them if the customer has already purchased it before July 21, 2021.
– The previous Azure offer will no longer be available to net-new subscriptions in CSP.
– For all new subscriptions, reseller relationships or new customer acquisitions, partners can only transact the new Azure offer (Azure plan).
For all existing reseller relationships between partners and customers, the partner may also choose to migrate existing customer subscriptions on the previous Azure offer to the new Azure offer at this time.
In phase 2, which will begin February 2022, incentives and partner margin opportunity will be removed from the previous Azure offer. We’ll communicate the phase 2 start date to partners six months in advance.
In phase 3, any remaining customers on the previous Azure offer will be migrated to the new Azure offer in the CSP program (Azure plan). As with the previous phases, we’ll communicate the phase 3 start date to partners six months in advance.”
Next Steps for Pax8 Partners
To move or upgrade to the new Azure Plan without purchasing a new Azure subscription, Pax8 partners can follow this easy step-by-step ordering guide for a $0 Microsoft Azure Plan SKU in the Pax8 Platform. If you have any questions or want more detailed information about the new Azure Plan, you can access the Azure Plan Guide below and contact your Channel Account Manager.
