In my last few blogs, I’ve gone over an overview of Microsoft Azure and some of the services available (such as Azure Virtual Desktop). In this month’s blog I thought it would be useful to touch on the Azure programs that are available through Dicker Data and Microsoft with regards to Azure. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to grow your Azure practice, these programs are designed to help yourselves as partners and in turn your customers.

Partnering with Dicker Data provides you with a range of benefits, some of these include our New Zealand based technical support team (along with access to Microsoft’s Premier Support team for escalations), sales support, technical presales engagements (including design support), through to partner enablement and development. In addition to these benefits, we also have a range of programs available to support you and your customers along yours and their cloud journey.

At the start of the journey there are two main programs to assist you:

Azure Express Solution Assessment:

  • Help customers understand the costs associated with running workloads in Azure.

  • Microsoft delivered (fully funded).

  • Microsoft will present this back to either you as the partner or alongside you to the customer depending on your preference.

  • Help customers with an active intent to move workloads to the public cloud and build a business case for migrating to Azure.

  • Free up your engineers to work on other projects.

  • Minimum of 5 powered on Windows/Linux Virtual Machines (you don’t need to be migrating all 5 VMs as a lot of the time during assessments, we find resources can be consolidated or are no longer needed).

  • You can sign-up here for an Azure Express Solution Assessment.

 

Dicker Data Cloud Assessment:

  • Like Azure Express but no minimum number of Virtual Machines.

  • Delivered by the Dicker Data Azure Technical BDMs (fully funded).

  • Cost estimate output showing environment in Azure with modernization options and key considerations.

  • Detailed information related to the estimate and its components to help you understand the assessment in greater detail.

  • You can request an assessment here or contact the Azure team directly.


Once you’ve done a Cloud Assessment (via Dicker Data or Microsoft), the next step to assist you is a Proof of Concept (PoC):

Dicker Data Proof of Concept funding:

  • Demonstrate how the customer workload(s) would run in Azure.

  • 95% conversion rate of PoC to production (paying customer) environment.

  • Funding will be based on the final estimated Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR). Dicker Data will refund up to 30 days of the subscription cost up to a maximum of $2000 based on PAYG prices.

  • Credit applied to your reseller account with Dicker Data.

  • You can request this here or contact the Azure team directly.

The next step along the cloud journey is to actually migrate into Azure, which you may be comfortable doing yourself using tools such as Azure Migrate, or you may want utilize funding from Microsoft to complete the implementation. Dicker Data utilizes an Azure Migrate and Modernize certified provider (non-compete service provider), though you can also make use of the funding yourself if you meet the Azure Advanced certification requirements:

 

Azure Migrate and Modernize (AMM) Partner-led:

  • Dicker Data registers the opportunity with AMM certified provider.
  • Partner/Dicker Data set-up customer Azure subscription and landing zone for the migration.
  • AMM provider registers opportunity with Microsoft, approval of funding generally takes 24-48 hours.
  • Agreement between Partner and AMM provider on migration deliverables & timeframes.
  • Migration timeframe – 2-3 weeks depending on the size/scope.
  • Final test and signoff before handing it back to Partner/Customer.
  • Please reach out to the Azure team and we can guide you in this process.

 

If your customer is a Not-for-profit organization then you can make use of the Tech for Social Impact (TSI) program in CSP from Microsoft for which Dicker Data is the Go-To-Market partner. There are two offerings from both Microsoft and Dicker Data which are designed to be used together:

Tech for Social Impact | Azure Credit Offer (ACO):

  • ACO is an initiative to allow the use of Azure credits to win and accelerate Azure consumption, it provides a fixed amount of free Azure usage.
  • Can be used for various scenarios, such as the deployment to mitigate customer’s concerns on dual costs during migration projects or for funding a Proof of Concept.
  • Available to all CSPs.
  • The customer must transact through the partner, have a Microsoft billing account established and up to date and be an approved Microsoft not-for-profit organization.
  • Deal Minimum - $5K USD estimated annual ACR.
  • Credit is 10:1 (estimated 12-month ACR divided by 10) – e.g., Estimated 12-month incremental ACR of $5,000 = $500 (applied in the 1st month of ACO approval and applies until the credit is all used up and offset on the monthly Microsoft invoice).

Tech for Social Impact | Dicker Data Offer:

  • $1,000 NZD Credit toward your deployment (paid as a one-off credit on the DDNZ partner account with Dicker Data).
  • Offer your clients a seamless, partner-led Azure deployment via CSP.
  • Minimum consumption figure of $750.00 NZD per month
  • Credit paid out after 3 months of consecutive consumption >NZD$750.00 per month to your reseller account with Dicker Data.
  • Eligibility Criteria: Customer needs to be accepted into the Microsoft TSI program and be eligible for the Azure Credit Offer (ACO).

Please reach out to the Azure Team or me for details on signing up and for full T&C’s.

The last part on the journey is Optimize, which is a detailed analysis of your customers Azure usage provided by the Azure team here at Dicker Data, which can be across a range of different areas depending on the scenario:

  • Cost Management: Assess costs and look for cost savings through Reserved Instances and utilizing the right licensing (Azure-based licensing or Azure Hybrid Benefit).
  • Modernization: Generally, we see most customers start their Azure journey with a Lift & Shift and then look at the modernization piece as next step, which is utilizing more specific offerings within the Microsoft Cloud ecosystem for the workloads currently running, e.g., moving from IaaS to PaaS and/or SaaS offerings which also helps with cost savings both from an administrative and consumption point of view.
  • Next logical workload based on current usage (security, monitoring, etc.).

 

As always, if you’d like to discuss these programs in some more depth, or anything Azure related, then please reach out to myself or anyone else in the Azure team here at Dicker Data.