MS Online/BPOS

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, Microsoft have moved in to the “Cloud Computing” space with MS Online, MS hosted versions of some of their most popular software. While other high profile “Cloud” apps (Salesforce.com, Google Apps etc) use a “Software AS A Service” (SAAS) model, Microsoft Online is “Software PLUS Services” (S+S) and that is a key differentiator.

SAAS is an online only model where the customer doesn’t have anything “on-premise” (installed at the customer site) and everything is in the “Cloud” (the internet). Microsoft realised that that doesn’t always suit all customers..they often like/need to have at least some portion of the software installed on-premise too, be it for Disaster Recovery, integration with other existing systems, high levels of customization and many other reasons so they went with Software+Services. The “Plus” is the key..customers can have the software on premise, in the cloud or a mix of both giving them a greater level of flexibility.

The products currently available via MS Online are:

• Exchange Online (Download Datasheet here )
• Sharepoint Online (Download Datasheet here)
• Live Meeting Online (Download Datsheet here)
• Office Communications Server Online (OCS) (download datasheet)
• Exchange Hosted Services (Download Datasheet here)

**Update-MS Online will be available to purchase via the MOCP**

You can sign up to a free 30 day trial of the above products here and a walkthrough for setting up the trial can be found here.

The various pages listed to the right go into more detail on each of the products, so please check those out

Now I believe it is time to look at how to get hold of it!

How is it purchased?

 First of all we should look at how it is purchased, as it is a radical departure for Microsoft software. The billing relationship is between the customer and Microsoft and it’s they who set the pricing-so it isn’t dependant on supplier margins etc, which is why I can state it with such confidence here!

The subscriptions are yearly and evergreen (meaning they automatically renew after 12 months) and are billed monthly. Customers can pay by credit card or bills of £340+ per month can be invoiced.

The actual purchase is done through the Microsoft Online Customer Portal online unless you have an Enterprise Agreement (EA), Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EAS), Campus Agreement or a Schools Agreement; for customers with these BPOS will be available via you current licensing agreement. For EA, only the BPOS Suite is available-NOT the individual components.

Price Drop!

Microsoft recently cut the price of BPOS and it’s individual components, so:

Pricing was previously:

Exchange = £6.69

Sharepoint = £4.85

Live Meeting = £3.01

Office Communications = £1.67

BPOS Suite = £10.04it is now:

Exchange = £3.35

Sharepoint = £3.51

Live Meeting = £3.01

Office Communications = £1.34

BPOS Suite = £6.69All pricing is per user per month.

How is it Licensed?

 All licenses are on a per-user basis through a User Subscription License (USL). 

A User Subscription License (USL) allows a designated user to access the online service for the duration of the subscription.  As an added benefit for existing Volume License customers, a USL also acts as a Client Access License (CAL) to enable access to your on-premise equivalents of the services.  For example, the Exchange Online Standard USL also enables a user to access your Exchange Standard server.  However, once the subscription ends so do the rights to access the server.

There are 5 price levels available according to the number of licences purchased:

These are “determined for each individual service subscription (not an aggregate of all service subscriptions)”. 

·         Quantity	·         Price Level
·         5 to 249	1
·         250 to 2,399	2
·         2,400 to 5,999	3
·         6,000 to 14,999	4
·         15,000 and above	5

 

 

There are also “Step Up” USL’s for those customers who currently licence Core CAL or E-CAL via their Volume Licensing program; these recognise the investment already made and offer a discount over standard USL pricing.

As well as the above, you can also purchase:  

I think that pretty much covers all the standard/basic information but if you have any questions or would like something clarifying on the above-please contact me Now as this is an online service-people are keen to find out about network requirements for running these…

Requirements:

The system requirements for accessing MS Online are very reasonable and should be easily met by the vast majority, if not all, systems out there: 

Software	Supported Version
Operating systems	Windows Vista® Business SP1 Windows Vista Enterprise SP1 Windows Vista Ultimate SP1	Windows XP® Professional SP2 Windows XP Tablet SP2 Apple Macintosh OS X 10. 5
System software	Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (for Windows XP) Java client 1.4.2 (for Macintosh OS X)*
Client applications	Microsoft Online Services Sign In application
Browser software	Microsoft Internet Explorer® 6 Windows® Internet Explorer 7 Mozilla Firefox 2**	Mozilla Firefox 3** Apple Safari 3 (on Macintosh OS X)**

 and the Network Requirements are minimal, I really don’t see these causing many problems for people. All in all you need just a minimum of 3 ports open for MS Online:

TCP 443/TCP 25/TCP 443 with UDP ports and ports 8057 & 3478 (for conferencing)

An example of bandwidth considerations for Exchange Online:

If your company has 100 medium OWA users, here’s how to calculate the average network traffic, measured in bytes per second.

Network bytes/sec = (100 medium users × (12,220 KB/user ÷ day)) ÷ (8 hr/day × 3600 sec/hr) = 42.4 KB/sec

Assuming a daily peak of twice the average usage, your network connection would need to support approximately 84.9 KB/sec.

More info on Bandwidth for Sharepoint & Live Meeting can be found here.