Nov 24, 2020
On November 1, 2020, Microsoft released Dynamics 365 Project Operations offers and removed Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation (PSA) for commercial customers.
What is changing?
DYNAMICS 365 PROJECT OPERATIONS
New application came on October 1, 2020. Going forward, all roadmap investments for the PSA software market will be done through this application.
DYNAMICS 365 PROJECT SERVICE AUTOMATION
There will not be any immediate disruption. Microsoft will work to transition you to at your pace. This service will continue running for customers on CSP until October 1, 2022 and EA until October 1, 2024, or until current contract ends, whichever comes first. Contract renewals will continue until October 1, 2021. Microsoft will offer a migration path to Project Operations. Current customers will be grandfathered into the new SKU and pricing.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND ACCOUNTING (PMA)
There will not be any immediate disruption. Microsoft will work to transition customers. SKU adjustments and entitlements for new customers will go into effect on October 1, 2020, moving from Finance to Project Operations. Microsoft will offer a migration path to Project Operations. Current customers will be grandfathered into the new SKU and pricing.
MICROSOFT PROJECT
Will be continued to be sold as PM and PPM solutions and common core capabilities Project for the web will incorporated natively into Dynamics 365 Project Operations.
Nov 18, 2020
Azure adds new constrained vCPUs, capable virtual machines to reduce software licensing costs without impacting performance
Azure offers various VM sizes for which you can constrain the VM vCPU count to reduce the cost of software licensing, while maintaining the same memory, storage, and I/O bandwidth.
This may be crucial for some database workloads like SQL Server or Oracle that require high memory, storage, and I/O bandwidth, but not a high core count since many database workloads are not CPU-intensive.
So, by deploying the latest Azure Virtual Machines, you can further increase the efficiency of your cloud infrastructure.
The vCPU count can be constrained to one half or one quarter of the original VM size. These new VM sizes have a suffix that specifies the number of active vCPUs to make them easier for you to identify.
The Esv4, Edsv4, and Easv4 memory optimized Azure VM series now offer new constrained vCPU VM sizes.
For example, the current VM size ‘’E8s_v4’’ comes with 8 vCPUs, 64 GB RAM, 16 disks and 12,800 IOPs. The new VM sizes ‘’E8-4s_v4’’ and ‘’E8-2s_v4’’ comes with 4 and 2 active vCPUs respectively, while maintaining the rest of the specs of the ‘’E8s_v4’’ for memory, storage, and I/O bandwidth.
The licensing fees charged for SQL Server or Oracle are constrained to the new vCPU count, and other products should be charged based on the new vCPU count. This results in a 50% to 75% increase in the ratio of the VM specs to active (billable) vCPUs. These new VM sizes allow customer workloads to use the same memory, storage, and I/O bandwidth while optimizing their software licensing cost. Currently, the compute cost, which includes OS licensing, remains the same one as the original size.
Aug 2, 2016
Are you finding it difficult to scale your hosting business due to difficulty managing multiple XenApp and XenDesktop domains? Is it difficult to audit customer service assignments and perform business analyses? Is your go to market strategy and multi-customer management affected by the complexity in setting up multiple offerings?
If you are finding yourself in any of the above situations, we have some good news for you. The latest release of the Hosted App and Desktop Service (HAaD) in CloudPortal Services Manager will wipe these challenges off your plate.
What is the Hosted Apps and Desktops Service?
CloudPortal Services Manager Hosted Apps and Desktops Service enables Citrix Service Providers to deliver and manage multi-tenant hosted XenApp and XenDesktop services from a single management interface – reducing complexity and helping scale across multiple customers/tenants.
Get Optimized Multi-Tenant Hosted Apps and Desktops Delivery with Latest HAaD Service
With the latest HAad Service, adopt enhanced ways to grow your margins, strengthen your portfolio and drive customer satisfaction:
- Deliver Hosted App and Desktop Services: Deliver hosted offerings at lower cost and with higher margins using a multi-tenant architecture and comprehensive control panel.
- Easily Scale a Multi-Tenant Hosting Business: Quickly scale your business with simplified onboarding, powerful automation and design flexibility – all managed within a single platform.
- Increase Technical Bench Productivity: Enable fast access and management of app and desktop services – 10x faster performance when managing service offerings.
- Simplify and De-risk Upgrades: Gain peace of mind with a flexible multi-site architecture that reduces downtime and improves risk management during upgrades and delivery of services.
New Features Supported in the Updated HAaD Service
- Here is how the latest HAaD service will empower you:
Easily Scale Multi-Tenant Environments and Maintain Version Flexibility
- Multi-site Support: Scale your infrastructure independently while maintaining flexibility with multiple versions of XenApp and XenDesktop.
- Upgrade via Migration: Independently manage multiple XenDesktop sites within a single platform – allowing a simple low risk upgrade and migration path.
Multi-site management for hosted apps and desktops.
Co-existence of Multiple Versions: Version agility allowing the use of existing infrastructure and onboard new customers to latest version of XenApp and XenDesktop.
Streamline Service Delivery with Simplified Management
- Simplified/Faster Onboarding: Quickly onboard new customers and applications with simplified app onboarding and bulk user provisioning.
- Optimized Service Delivery and Usability: Identify and assign offerings as shared or private in a couple of click without the need for a complex naming convention.
- Simplified Offering Management: Quickly understand offering assignment across all multi-tenant sites and Shared/Private modes from an intuitive management portal.
Deliver Multi-Tenant Offerings Faster with Improved Performance
- 10X Faster Performance for Delivery of Offerings: Rapidly deliver offerings in a muti-tenant environment for “A” customer and “B” offerings across a set of “C” users.
- Detailed Usage Insights: Gain detailed insights into service usage and customer assignments – helping decisions that enable faster delivery of services.
Site deployment, usage and assignment.
Achieve continuous delivery of services
- Robust Design and Architecture with Enhanced Support: Independently update various versions of XenDesktop, StoreFront and VDA versions by leveraging flexible architecture.
- Risk Management: Manage upgrade risks by independently validating update and migration procedures thereby eliminating downtime.
