May 8 Americas Partner Insider Call: Demystifying Copilot Licensing

Shubham Choudhary, Director, Security Product GTM, GPS Americas, will lead the discussion and answer your questions on demystifying Copilot licensing. Peter Horsman, Partner Solutions Governance Lead at Microsoft, will also join the call to provide the latest Co-op (Partner Incentives Cooperative Marketing Funds) updates designed to help drive the growth of your business.

Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights from our expert speakers, connect with other partners, get the latest updates, and elevate your partnership with Microsoft. Register today!

See the list of previous sessions available to watch on demand.

Partner Audience:#CSP
Relevant to: #Deadline #UnderstandBenefits #Azure

End of support for SQL Server 2014

July 9, 2024, marks the end of support (EOS) for SQL Server 2014. As a Microsoft partner, it’s always important to understand the options available and the actions you need to take to keep your customers’ mission-critical systems secure and compliant. The approaching EOS deadline provides an opportunity to assess your customers’ business needs and upgrade their IT infrastructure. Read this blog to learn more.

Partner Audience:#CSP #MSP
Relevant to: #SalesAndMarketing #BestPractice #GrowYourBiz #CrossSolution

Microsoft AI Cloud Summit for SMB Partners: Session playlist

The MSP Summit in March provided an opportunity for managed service providers to connect with Microsoft SMB and partner stakeholders, explore new technology solutions for scaling your business, and learn best practices from other Microsoft partners who have successfully implemented solutions with their customers.

If you missed the in-person event or want a recap, you can watch the sessions on demand.

Microsoft Build: Attend live in Seattle or online

How will AI shape your future? Join us at Microsoft Build on May 21–23, in person in Seattle or online. Be among the first to hear about announcements and product updates. Find solutions, meet with industry experts, and get your questions answered. Grow and differentiate your skillset through hands-on demos and breakout sessions. Learn more and register today.

Partner Audience: #AllPartners #AllRoles
Relevant to: #ProgramOfferUpdate #UnderstandBenefits #Azure

New Azure SMB paths to Solutions Partner designations coming soon!

One of the most exciting things that happened at our Americas AI and Cloud MSP Partner Summit last month was the announcement of Microsoft’s continued investment in SMB with new SMB paths for Azure and Security Solutions Partner designations. This means more access to products, go-to-market resources, support, and training, as well as offers and incentives to help you grow your business. Read this blog to learn more.

Partner Audience: #Services #MSP #AllRoles
Relevant to: #GoToMarket #DoingBizwMSFT #CrossSolution

Celebrating our MSP Community—Key takeaways from the Summit

Last month we held an Americas AI and Cloud MSP Partner Summit at our Microsoft Corporate Campus in Redmond. If you weren’t able to attend, here are some key takeaways from Erwin Visser, GM CSP Americas, and Jose Gomez Cueto, GM SMB, on ways to build your practice and understand your SMB customers.

Mark your calendar for the next Americas Partner Insider Call on March 6 at 10:00 AM PT

Vince Menzione, CEO of Ultimate Partner and host of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering podcast, will share how to thrive and survive as the Ultimate Partner in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Register today!

The event will be held in English, with closed captions in Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

Partner Audience: #AllPartners #CSP #ServicesPartners #MSP
Relevant to: #Event #GrowYourBiz #CrossSolution

Are you looking for resources and guidance to help you grow your managed services practice?

We’ve got you covered. First, attend our February 27, 2024, Managed Services Provider (MSP) Community Call. You’ll learn about Lighthouse 365 multi-tenant management and propensity list creation tools.

Register here.

This event is delivered in English, with closed captioning in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

Next, jump into the conversation in our newly launched MSP Community for Americas partners (in English). We invite you to share your ideas and engage with other partners. We want to hear about your experiences talking to customers about their cloud solutions, navigating the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, and building solutions. And our Microsoft Americas MSP experts will keep you informed about resources from Microsoft to help you along the way. See you in the community!

Partner Audience: #AllPartners
Relevant to: #UnderstandBenefits #ProgramOfferUpdate #CrossSolution

Expanded opportunity for partners: Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available to transact through CSP

As of January 16, 2024, Copilot for Microsoft 365 became generally available across all sales channels including Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) new commerce.

This step expands access to more customers and creates more opportunities for the partners who serve them. Hear what partners are saying and find out how you can get started in this blog from Nicole Dezen. Learn more on how to transact Microsoft 365 Copilot in this Partner Center announcement.

As businesses shift their operations from on-premises to the cloud, security has become a top priority. Cloud workloads are the applications, data, and other IT assets that run on cloud platforms including Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Securing cloud workloads is essential to preventing unauthorized access, data breaches, cyberattacks, and compliance violations that could compromise the performance, availability, and integrity of your cloud services. Let’s explore what you can do to help protect your customers’ cloud environments.

Minimize the risks with a cloud workload protection platform

A cloud workload protection platform (CWPP) is a cloud security solution that helps protect cloud workloads—offering unified cloud workload protection across multiple providers. By using a CWPP, your customers can leverage the benefits of cloud computing while reducing the risks and challenges of cloud workload security.

According to a report by Wiz, a cloud security company, 50 percent of the public cloud environments they analyzed had at least one critical vulnerability associated with unsecured APIs. Examples of vulnerabilities associated with unsecured APIs include suboptimal access controls, weak authentication protocols, wrong rate limits, and accidental exposure. These oversights can leave the interfaces vulnerable to malicious activities, so it’s important to secure cloud workloads by using a CWPP that can monitor and remediate API-related issues in near real-time.

Why Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

For many, a CWPP is part of a larger cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP). A CNAPP combines the workload protection tools from a CWPP along with cloud security posture management (CSPM) solutions, which focus on the accounts associated with cloud applications.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a CSPM and CWPP designed to protect your customers’ cloud environments. Among other benefits, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can help your customers:

• Detect and respond to cyberattacks in real time across multiple cloud platforms, as well as on-premises workloads.
• Reduce attack surface by identifying and remediating vulnerabilities before they’re exploited and automatically safeguarding new workloads as soon as they’re deployed.
• Integrate their unified security operations platform and provide connected investigation and hunting with Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence.
• Customize their security with the right cloud workload protection plan for their resources, such as servers, storage, containers, databases, and APIs.

Figure 1. Microsoft Defender for Cloud pillars: Unify your DevOps security management, strengthen and manage your cloud security posture, protect your cloud workloads.

To learn more about Defender for Cloud, see:

• What is Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud product page
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing page

Earn partner incentives

Not only is Defender for Cloud a powerful technology for securing cloud workloads, as a Microsoft partner you can also earn incentives on it. Part of the Microsoft Commerce Incentives (MCI) portfolio, the Workload Acquisition & Nurture incentive (WANI) rewards qualifying partners for landing new workloads on Azure. WANI offers up to $9K per customer per workload for acquisition and 30 percent on month-over-month growth of partner-led Azure consumed revenue (PAL ACR) for nurture. This incentive is available to partners who deliver top-notch Azure solutions across various scenarios, such as security, migration, modernization, and hybrid.

Learn more

Cloud Workload Protection Solutions | Microsoft Security

Azure Foundations: Security & Defender for Cloud (microsoft.com)

Related posts

Join the MSP Partner Community and expand your service offerings with Microsoft | Microsoft

Drive security with the new Secure Multicloud Environments campaign and other partner assets | Microsoft

Join the conversation

Want to explore this and other topics you care about with Microsoft and other US partners? Head over to the Microsoft Americas Partner Community on LinkedIn.