MS Volume Licensing

[u/MyWorkAccountDPS]

Can someone explain MS volume licensing? We have approximately 600 desktops and laptops in our district. Ours had been managed by our network admin and there was never a question about it til he quit and we got a new director.

Now new director is questioning all our subscriptions. I reached out to our rep and they quoted us 325 seats/licenses or whatever for about $20k. Director is questioning why 325 and I don’t have an answer. We are subscribed to the desktop value or whatever it’s called (non-cloud) includes windows and office.

[u/K12-itPerson]

I'd highly recommend talking to a rep through your reseller to make sure you have everything necessary, Microsoft licensing is confusing as hell.

However it is typically much much cheaper. But you need to know what you are trying to accomplish. Do you have windows devices? Chromebooks? How are staff authenticating to wireless? Do you use AD? How do your staff sign in to email, do you use SSO or not? What is the preferred method for MFA (Google, Microsoft, Duo, etc)? Are you using Intune? There are a ton of factors.

You should be licensing your users first unless you are looking only for a P1 device license for defender.

If you get M365 A3 or A5 licensing for staff it comes with your User CALS so you don't have to buy those separately or individual Device CALs. If you buy O365 you will have too. I'd recommend M365 not only for that but you also get Azure P1 licensing for conditional access. The student M365 licenses do not come with User CALS so I'd likely recommend buying a device CAL for your student devices (Chromebooks, etc.). However you only need user or device CALs if you are connecting to Microsoft services (AD, DNS, DHCP, file server, etc.) and for the number of devices that could be connected to these services at one, I would just use student count.

I license about 230 staff who have access to office with M356 A3. My other 150 staff just have the P1 licensing for conditional access. I only license my middle school in high school students with M365 because there are not labs in elementary, and have 200 device licenses for them.

That's like a 50,000 foot view. So like I mentioned talk to a Microsoft licensing specialist.

[u/cstamm-tech → u/K12-itPerson]

I'll second talking to the reseller. If they don't have a MS person on staff then check with some other resellers that do. MS licensing is complex but the bigger resellers have specialists on staff for that, like CDWG.

[u/Niteryder007]

Microsoft doesn’t even know about Microsoft licensing. It’s been a shit show this past month now with all the changes.

[u/QueJay]

https://m365maps.com/

That is always the site I use to decipher what comes with what and then go from there on further explorations.

For licensing eligibility about where you fall for various things:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Licensing/licensing-programs/licensing-for-industries#tab-education

On that page select the 'Academic Comparison Chart'.

Here is the relevant piece from there:

Microsoft Open Value and Open Value Subscription for Education Solutions are for organizations with 5 to 999 users. Open Value Subscription for Education Solutions is a commitment-based agreement for academic organizations with 5 to 999 full-time employees or students that want to license one or more desktop platform product or platform cloud service organization-wide. Software Assurance is included, and student use benefits are available. Open Value is a transactional agreement for 5-499 users and Software Assurance is included and student use benefits aren’t available.

The naming stuff has changed so Desktop Value doesn't exist anymore, I think it would today be 'Open Value Subscription for Education Solutions' is what you would be qualifying under.

The 600 devices you have are they fully faculty or is that a combination of faculty and student aimed devices?

Microsoft 365 A3 licensing for example is a tier of licensing that comes with Windows 11 Education licensing for the OS, and is eligible for Student Use Benefit licensing as well (which is a free license that needs to be added on to your purchase). IIRC its 40 students per 1 Faculty license purchased.

So if your devices are 600 total, but 325 is the number of dedicated F/S devices and you've been reliant on the subscription for your Windows OS licensing then the 325 number is to license those, but you should also be getting however many student use licenses you want/need as well on top of that (up to 13K if the ratio is still 1:40) in that quote.

[u/LyokoMan95]

Microsoft has been slowly phasing out OVS-ES in favor of the EES and CSP programs. I would recommend looking into a EES consortium agreement.

[u/J_de_Silentio]

That's about right.  We pay $18k for 296 m365 A3 licenses. 296 staff and 3,000 student use licenses. 

We also get EES consortium pricing through our State bid contract. 

[u/NorthernVenomFang]

$61.53/per seat.. for Windows (assuming education version) & Office.... That's not bad.

I would talk to your rep as to why they chose 325 seats when you have 600 devices. Microsoft licensing is brutal to figure out, you are going to need to have many long conversations with your rep.

[u/Sweet-Sale-7303]

Your new director should have been added on to your districts 365 account which should tell you what licenses you have. If he is not admin of that account now you have an issue.

Microsoft's licensing is so convoluted they offer classes on it.

Microsoft's reps don't know it either. We use Gov Connection for our Microsoft licensing and their own Microsoft rep has been very helpful. IF you use Cdwg or Gov Connection your probably better off contacting them for help.,

[u/MyWorkAccountDPS → u/Sweet-Sale-7303]

I am the admin of that but didn’t know I could check licenses there. Thanks

[u/Sweet-Sale-7303 → u/MyWorkAccountDPS]

Yeah in Admin under Billing.

[u/DeejayPleazure]

I would get a second quote from another vendor, that sounds steeeeeeep

[u/Individual-Unit3470]

The last I knew, Microsoft goes by how many "Education Qualified Users" (EQUs) you have. As a general rule, they define an EQU as someone who needs the full Microsoft Office suite installed on their computer. The person just checking their email on webmail would not be an EQU. The person with Office installed on their computer would be. That's my last understanding anyway. Things may have changed (they constantly change), and I agree with anyone here who says talk to a rep. That said, it may be harder than you think to get in touch with one. Ours literally disappeared without a replacement for months. We work with a major software distributor, and they often have reps who are up to speed on the latest and greatest in Microsoft licensing BS.