To provision additional Azure subscriptions, Partners would NOT provision additional Azure plans. Instead, additional Azure subscriptions can be created under the customer’s existing Azure plan through the Azure Management Portal.
Microsoft Azure (Class Azure) will be available through Nov 1st, 2020. Microsoft MSP and CSP partners are currently transitioning their Azure customers to the Azure plan and the modern commerce infrastructure before the deadline.
Partners purchasing a new Azure offer in Partner Center must choose between Microsoft Azure or the Azure plan. Partners will not be able to provision both offerings at the same time.
Provisioning the Azure plan
Partners choosing the Azure plan must ensure the terms of the Microsoft Customer Agreement are accepted. Resellers will have one-time provisioning of the Azure plan per customer via Partner Center.
The Azure plan acts as a container for all Azure subscriptions. When the Azure plan is provisioned, an Azure subscription underneath the Azure plan is created by default.
Transitioning a Microsoft Azure subscription to the Azure Plan
Managing Azure Resources for PEC (Partner Earned Credit)
How to increase revenue in your cloud business?
5 quick tips to improve revenue with smarter and
efficient provisioning and subscription management
The Impact
Classic Azure was billed to Microsoft partners at a discount (usually 15%). This discount was the retail margin that partners were expected to markup the reported usage summary to create a customer-facing invoice.
However, with the Azure plan, Microsoft invoices the partner (reseller) the full retail amount without any margin. Microsoft will later provide a Partner Earned Credit equivalent to the resale margin 2 months later based as a credit on the invoice as mentioned above. What this is means is if you are transitioning existing Azure subscriptions to Azure Plan:
With the current version of Work 365, the transition from Classic Azure to Azure Plan, there is no impact on the Azure invoice. Using a billing automation solution like Work 365 reduces and even eliminates the complexities around the Microsoft CSP Partner program.
Understand changes a Microsoft Partner needs to make to eliminate roadblocks and scale business growth.