Name: Accelerating Growth with Microsoft OEM Windows Server 2025 & Azure Local
Uploaded: 2025-11-13T02:16:06.845Z
Duration: 55 min 16 s
Description: Accelerating Growth with Microsoft OEM Windows Server 2025 & Azure Local

Transcript for "Accelerating Growth with Microsoft OEM Windows Server 2025 & Azure Local": Welcome, everybody. I might just give it a couple more minutes for everyone else to join. Okay. People will be joining in the next couple of minutes, but we'll kick off anyway just to make sure that we're punctual. My name is Anthony. I'm the distribution manager, and I look after the ISG business in Australia for Ingram, Dicker, and Leader. Thank you for joining. I'm going to introduce our presenter today. He is his name is Jayanth. He's our Lenovo business development consultant for Microsoft. He's a Microsoft MVP, a specialist in all things infrastructure solutions and licensing for Microsoft, especially and including Azure and Azure local. Before I bring Jayanth on to present, I just wanna let you know we're gonna be having a quiz at the end of the presentation today, and we've got three prizes to give away. We've got the Lenovo TWS x nine earbuds, which are actually the ones that I'm wearing right now. You can see those. They work really well. We also have a Bluetooth wireless battery free keyboard, which is pretty much what it sounds like. It's a wireless keyboard that doesn't need batteries or charging. It actually charges itself using ambient light. And we've also got a Lenovo 16 inch pro backpack as well. That is one of the prizes we'll be giving away. So hosting a quiz at the end to pay attention during the presentation. There'll be three questions. First person to answer each of those questions gets one of those prizes. I'll take your details down and make sure we get it shipped out to you. So introducing Jay. Take it away, Jay, to present today's presentation. Hey. Thank you. Thanks, Anthony. Thanks for the warm introduction. Yeah. Absolutely. So I hope you guys can hear me just fine. I'm right now in Manila. Beautiful country. Just managed to escape the the turbulent weather, because of the cyclone, but it's looking pretty good, at the moment, though. Alright. So, let me just kick off. Let me just present let me see. Okay? Alright. Anthony, can you give me a nudge if you can see my screen just fine? Yeah. It's looking. good. Perfect. Perfect. Alright. Alright. So today, we're gonna be talking about, all things Windows Server, how you can sell ROC licenses, and how you can, you know, succeed by selling ROC licenses. What are some of the gotchas that you need to be aware of? How do you have conversations with customers? What are, what are the key drivers for you to position and lead with Microsoft technology? I know there's been, an exodus from literally, from people from moving away from VMware, and how do we address those customers today, with Windows Server or Azure local? And how do you lead with either of them? Right? So how do you, position Windows Server or Azure local? So all these conversations are gonna be around it. Right? Now now most of you know know that, you know, Lenovo sells a ton of laptops and desktops and whatnot. Right? But it's important to understand that we also sell servers. And along with servers, we sell the operating systems, the SQL Server database, and then the Azure local OEM license as well, which is the Azure local hybrid. Now let's not forget the fact that for every operating system that we sell, there is also requirement for CALs. So I'm gonna cover what CALs are a little more in detail, but think of CALs for time being as something that you need to have a license to access a device. Right? So we'll we'll delve deeper into what calls are. Now so this is just the summary of what we can sell from Lenovo. Right? If you're a business partner with Lenovo, you can sell all of this, you know, through the distis. You can procure rock licenses. And what are those different, skews that you can sell. From a Windows Server standpoint, you can sell Windows Server '20 25, essential edition, standard edition, and data center edition. Now essential keep in mind, Windows Server 2025 essential edition is the is the only edition that that is sold via OEM license or rock license. Right? So which means customers today cannot procure essential edition, from open market, like open license or, volume license or so on and so forth. Right? So, or they they can't even download, from the Internet. Right? From s MSDN or whatever. So it's available only through the OEM. Now, standard edition and data center. So what's the difference? How do you position each of these operating systems? It really depends on the number of users, and, obviously, the number of virtual machines. Today, nobody is gonna deploy an operating system on a bare metal server. They will always, want to virtualize. Now, in case of Windows Server essential, you always look for customers very small, you know, install base, less than 25 users, maybe less than 50 devices. And the best part is you don't need to license your devices or users. Right? It's up to 50 devices completely free, on essential edition. So, it's a very tiny kind of requirement where you have less than 25 users. It's obviously cost cost effective. Then it comes to Windows server standard, that's when you need to license the CALS separately, but it gives you two VMs for every 16 core license that you sell. Then you need more VMs. You need to add and or purchase additional 16 core licenses. So as you can see, there is a limitation on the number of virtual machine OSCs, that you can host on a Windows Server standard edition. When it comes to data center, it's all it's it's completely a different ballgame. So which means you license all the physical host physical course in the server, which means you get unlimited virtualization rights. So you can have unlimited VMs running on top of Hyper V. It's pretty simple, straightforward. So, obviously, it's gonna be more expensive than, you know, Windows Server standard, but it gives you unlimited rights in terms of, in terms of virtualization. So how do you kinda sell between standard edition and when, data center edition? Standard is where you have customers working towards a budget. They may not have to run a whole bunch of VMs, maybe about you know, few maybe two to two to eight VMs maximum. That's when you lead with Windows Server standard. If a customer has a high density of, virtual machines that they need to run, always always lead with Windows Server, data center because it works out to be way more cheaper than actually procuring a standard edition, especially if you have more VMs that are running. Then, obviously, you have the you have the database. Right? So which is the Windows Server '20 twenty two, standard edition and enterprise edition. So always ask these questions. Right? So when when a custom when you're selling a server, ask the question, hey. Do you need the operating system? Do you need the database? Do you need the cals? So these are basic questions that I would always ask the customer regardless of what they're trying to do. Right? They may say, hey. I'm I already have these licenses, but just ask these simple questions. Then if the conversation moves towards Azure Hybrid, so which means they're envisioning their overall organizations to kind of move into the Azure Hybrid landscape where they have existing workloads that are running in Azure today. They kinda want to be in somewhere in between state, but at the same time, they wanna modernize their on premises infrastructure, but leverage all of the capabilities of Azure services, then you lead with Azure local. Okay? So which is 24 h two that's available today. And, yes, we we can still sell rock licenses for Azure local as well, which is nothing but the Azure local OEM edition. I'm gonna talk a little more about that. So let's let's get into CALCS. Now the only gotcha that you need need to be aware of, if the customer, says, hey. Can I license by virtual because most of my VMs are running virtual machines? Can I license by virtual CPU? While with OEM licenses, they cannot. But if they they need to have either software assurance or through subscription based licenses only, this is something to be aware of. So in summary, never never forget to offer all of these SKUs regardless of the hypervisor in use. Yes. So I've seen a lot of business partners say, oh, they're running VMware, so we don't have anything to sell from a Microsoft's perspective. Well, if you ask the question, how many, you know, you know, what what is your VM workloads today? And they'll come back and say 70 to 80% of them are Windows. So that means you still have an opportunity to sell all of these queues, probably except Azure local, but you can sell all of them pretty much. Right? So you just ask the question whether it could they could be running Nutanix, VMware, doesn't matter. But they're still running Windows as guest VMs, so we still have an opportunity to sell OEM SKUs there. Now let's understand what are CALs. Right? So CALs, it's expanded as client access licensing, which means for every, you know, Windows Server that you need to access that Windows Server, you would need a license to access that. Think about remote desktop services. You would need a license. A user trying to access that Windows Server remotely requires a license. So, what kinds of licenses do we have under CALs? You have user licenses. So let's say think about, an organization has a lot of users, but probably fewer devices. Right? But all of these users should be able to access all of those devices. That's when you actually sell user accounts. Think of device accounts. Think of a situation where, they're shift workers, like call centers or factory workers, for example. Right? So they have more devices. Sorry. They have less devices, but more, they have single device, but unlimited users. So that that means think about, like, maybe about 50 devices, but they have about 100 users. They're working in a rotational shift, so which means 50 people come in, use 50 devices, and then the next shift, 50 people come in, use those those remaining 50 devices. That's when you license device calls. The reason being, it works out to be cheaper to license using device calls in that scenario. So it's all about understanding which user calls fits best for the customer and, provides them at an optimal, cost. And RDS calls, for example so let's say if somebody is trying to do a remote desktop services, you would always, you know, sell them an RDS scale. Now this is an important thing. Right? So a lot of people think that if we haven't sold rock licenses, whether it's an operating system license, SQL Server, whatever it is, then we obviously have nothing to do, with selling them license. We just sell the hardware and forget it. No. Absolutely wrong. You still have an option to sell CALs because CALs are independent of the licensing type. Right? Even if the customer has bought the OS license from the open marketplace, open volume license or wherever or CSP or enterprise agreement, doesn't matter because we can still sell them, you know, all these cals. And the best part is the reason why I keep saying this is because cals are way, way cheaper compared to same customers procuring these cals from CSP or through enterprise agreement. So that's why I keep saying this. Right? So, you know, sell as much as we can because this is the cheapest thing that we can sell, and customers will slowly start realizing once they start comparing the prices, oh my goodness. Am I paying so much for what I'm not using? Right? So they'll realize that. So it's always better to kind of lead with, you know, sell them, at least as an optional code. Now why are okays are important? Right? It's easy. It's easier to procure when the customer buys the server. You can just attach, an an OS along with the server, and then it comes with the with the overall bomb. It's perpetual in nature. Right? It lives and dies with the hardware, simple as it gets. There is no hassle of every, you know, renewal every single year. Right? So it's simple as it gets. It just live you know, it's perpetual in nature. And the best part is when you sell the server and all you need to do is sell licenses, whether it could be operating system license, database, and plus ad cals, you have a potential to increase your overall revenue from two to three x. So much easier. And it's the lowest price. Why not? I mean, you know, if I'll I'll probably talk through about the comparison of the price comparison between, enterprise agreement and CSP. So it gives you an idea about why customers should really go and pick it up. But I know there are some obligations, but I'll come I'll I'm gonna cover that as well. And the best part is it's tested and certified on this particular SKU. All rock licenses that we sell are the ones are the OS binaries that we test on Lenovo hardware. Right? You get that peace of mind. Plus, when the customer calls, Lenovo for support, whether it's the operating system or whether it's the hardware, we still provide support for the customer. Right? Yes. We provide basic support, but let's say the customer bought the, the OS from open license or from CSP or from enterprise agreement, we will say, I'm sorry. We will run the diagnostics on the hardware for if it's an OS issue, you need to contact the respective vendor that you bought your license from. Right? So we literally kind of wash your hands. So if they buy it from us, they get a sink they basically have to take a single board for support. Yes. They they get only basic support, but basic support sometimes is all they need, just to understand where the issue is where the issues are. Alright. So this is just a comparison of about, you know, just to give you an idea about, you know, what is the potential, of the overall sale that we can achieve. Right? Just selling a standard server like an s t 50, which costs you about $900, add Windows Server standard on top of it, add some about 10 packs of, cals, you know, on on top of that. You can easily take this to $2,250. Now where's 900 and where where's $2,002.50? Same thing with, you know, s r six fifty v three, for example. The bare metal hardware, I call it as an idiot box, which costs about 5,000, and then you add licenses on top of it, make it more intelligent. It goes up to about $12,002.50. This is just by asking simple questions, very simple questions. Do you need the OS? Do you need SQL Server? Do you need CALS? Right? If the customer says, maybe at least two of two or two out of 10 people will come back and say, oh, yeah. Wait. Let me think about it. Right? So you still have an opportunity and a potential to upsell. Alright. So what are some of the key indicators for Microsoft technology? Right? Customers are predominantly today let's, you know, make no mistake. 70 to 80% of most customers that we know, especially SMBs, are running Windows Server. And everybody is right now leaving VMware, looking at various options. So VM at exit is one key indicator that we wanna look for. Reduction in licensing layers. How many of us know that? Right? For example, let's say if they're running predominantly Windows Server guest VMs on top of Nutanix or on top of VMware, they're actually managing two different layers of licensing because they need to pay for VMware. And for every feature that they turn on, VMware will ask you for a credit card. Same is the case with Nutanix. Right? Any feature that you wanna turn on, they will say, sorry. You need to upsell. You need to buy a, you know, more expensive license. Right? So they're dealing with all these licenses. On top of it, for virtual machines, they have to deal with Windows, Windows, Windows license as well. Instead, if you can cover the host license and the guest license and unified, there's only one license that you need to need to worry about. So much easier. Not just so much easier. It's also cost effective for a customer. Is a governance and management. Right? It's customers since they're already managing Windows Server VMs, managing the Windows Server operating system or Azure local, for example, should should we say should be as simple as it gets because you use the same tooling, like Windows admin center, system center, for example. You use the same tooling so customers are already familiar with that. And they already have existing investments today. Right? So SQL Server, Azure, m three sixty five, 80, and so on. Lot of customers today are looking at edge and robo use cases. So with, Windows Server or Azure local, you can literally go with just two nodes, or sometimes one node. I know one node is a disaster, but there are a lot of customers who just maybe wanna run one node, and they may want to kind of compromise on, on criticality. Right? So they're okay to, let go that. Right? So you can still sell them a single node as well. App modernization is top of mind for every organization today. Right? So and Windows Server is really well positioned to kind of handle that. Not just Windows Server, even with Azure Local as well. I know I keep saying Windows Server and Azure Local. I am gonna come to that as to how do you differentiate between the two. Hybrid cloud, if the customer has, like I said, hybrid cloud desire, which means they already are running some workloads today in Azure, then they're also, you know, running some virtual machines and workloads on premises. But, they wanna kind of modernize into a hybrid cloud ecosystem. So that's when you would think about Azure local, for example. Security and compliance, everybody is after security and compliance. VM migration. So especially for customers who are exiting VMware today, you have amazing options to move those workloads or those VMs into Windows Server or Azure local. I'm gonna talk about what are those tools that are available. And the best part is all the tools that are available is absolutely free of cost. So customers don't have to go to Commvault, VM, Zerto, you name it. Right? So they don't have to pay additional cost. It's all free tool that's available within the Microsoft ecosystem. Alright. So going back to the objection handling. Now you may face, a customer and say, oh, wait. You know, I may get it, the same licenses from a CSP at a much cheaper cost. Right? So let's compare that. Right? I'm just comparing a Windows Server '20 25 data center with 16 core, 10 RDS CALS, 10 user CALS between OEMs and CSP for just three years, guys. The reason I put three years is because you can't get a pricing from CSP beyond three years. After three years, the CSP Microsoft will start dictating what they want to provide price for. Right? So you're pretty much sucked into the game. So this is what subscription is all about. Right? So it I know it's pay as you go. All that's all that's fine, but then the terms and conditions are gonna be dictated by the service provider. So in this case, it's pretty straightforward. Right? If the pricing doesn't change. Now you the what is what will be interesting is what happens after five years? This bar got this bar is gonna continue to grow while this is gonna remain constant because it's just you bite once and you forget it. So some of the things that you will always deal with this. Right? No as OS upgrade benefit. Yes. OEM licenses do not get an automatic OS upgrade. But the question let's be honest here, guys. How many of us still encounter customers running Windows Server '2 thousand eight? How many of how many of our customers are still running Windows Server '2 thousand twelve? The reason why they've not been able to upgrade their operating system is because the applications vendors, the ISVs, haven't certified. If they have to certify it for a newer operating system, now these customers have to pay a whole lot of money. They literally have to pry pay a bomb for these ISVs to certify them. Right? That's one of the reasons they're still lagging behind. The other reason is ain't broken. Don't fix it. It's running fine. I don't wanna fix something that is not broken. Right? So they've just been there forever. Right? But so this is one of the reasons that I keep saying. Right? If the customers come back and say, oh, you know what? I don't get upgrade benefits. The question is, Microsoft upgrades sense an, you know, releases a new operating system every three years. It takes about year for the operating system to stabilize before it it's it's actually put into production. So you're talking about four years now. Right? But the question is, are the customers ready to make that shift? They're not. Because their application is still virtualized. They're not containers. Many customers today are still running on virtual machines. Right? So if you answer all these questions, if you ask these question was if the customer comes back and say, they're very matured organization, we we change operating system hardware every two to three years, then, yes, OEM license is not for you. Right? You're better off with CSP or with enterprise agreement. So let's ask these questions. Okay. So same objection handling with, enterprise agreement customers as well. I'm gonna send you these slides, so don't worry. Look at the cost difference. Right? Enterprise agreement is they have to renew enterprise agreement and software assurance, every single year. Okay? They buy enterprise agreement, and enterprise agreement is based on entitlements. It does not cover everything, and minimum is 500 seats. Okay? So small business customers generally will not be able to, procure an enterprise agreement license. Right? So it's only for the really large enterprise. Even for the large enterprise, if you provide this picture about, hey. What are you paying? Right? Are you really thinking about how much you're o overpaying for the ones that you're not not even using? Right? I think that's where, it kind of, you know, lights up their mind and say, oh, wait a minute. Am I spending too much money here? So there's a lot of changes that keep coming to my enterprise agreement. In fact, the latest changes is they've removed all the floor discounts. There is there's no floor b, c, d level discounts. Everybody now pays at level a. Okay? So all the floor, floor level discounts have been removed. Okay. Let's look at the VMware exit options here. Now if a customer, is exiting VMware, they have two options. One, they can leave their on premises, literally ditch their on premises infrastructure ID, move every everything to the cloud. If they move everything to the cloud, now they have Azure VMware solution, so which means they have as is kind of an infrastructure, but running in Azure data center, which means they don't have control over. But it's easier to procure the licenses. They don't have to meet with minimum course entitlement for VMware mandated by VMware and Broadcom today. So it's easier. So all the licenses are easier to manage. Or they simply ditch the VMware technology and move everything to Azure. So which means they're gonna use Azure infrastructure, as a service or pass services. But how many customers today are ready to move to the cloud? Right? Especially if they're running some, existing workloads today on prem, there is a reason why they're doing that. Right? Because of regulatory reasons or because the localization reasons. So they're running on premises because of the known reasons that they're already familiar with. So for them, the this option probably is a no go. So what do you do? So you either have an option of leading with Azure local or with Windows Server. Very simple. If a customer, you know, is modernizing their infrastructure, but they want a lift and shift temporary lift and shift. And they're also looking at hybridizing the overall infrastructure because they already have a presence in in Azure. Now if a customer is looking at single pane of glass kind of an experience, which means they manage the local Azure resources, but they're also managing on non Azure resources, which which means the on prem resources, you lead lead with Azure local. Very simple. Okay? The only gotcha that you need to be aware of is that it needs to be connected to Azure every once in thirty days. Okay? But they get all kinds of benefits. For example, Azure services like Azure Virtual Desktop, SQL managed instances, which is nothing but a pass, service of, of a SQL database. Free extended security updates. I talked about Windows Server '2 thousand eight, Windows Server '2 thousand twelve. Because of the stickiness of the ISVs, they can't really move and shift, lift and shift. But they need to pay for ESUs right now because it's already under support. But if they move those workloads into Azure local, they get free at least until, October 2026. And as an organization, they have a hybrid cloud strategy. So Windows Server on the other hand, it's pretty straightforward. If the customer says, well, I can't connect to Azure, I don't have anything to do with Azure, all I care about is exit VMware. I'm looking at, you know, just modernizing my on premise infrastructure and are you know, just running Windows workloads lead with Windows Server. It's it's the cheapest option that's available, and it's the best option. Right? Provide them with OEM licenses, rock licenses, that will cover unlimited guest VMs as well if it's Windows Server data center. Very, very simple and straightforward. Right? It's a Windows Server failover cluster. Alright. So now, let's look at, what are some of the migration options that are available from VMA to Azure local. Right? If the customer now let's say you've had a discussion with a customer. You're pretty sure they invested in Azure, so you're leading with Azure local, to get that hybrid benefit or the hybrid, landscape for that customer, then how do you migrate the VMs? So the answer is Azure Migrate. Azure Migrate is a tool that is used today to move VMs or to migrate VMs from on premises into the cloud. A lot of organizations use it extensively. That same tool is now made available, on, on Azure local as well. It's the same experience. Right? And the best part is it's free. What about Windows Server? So Windows Server today, most of you know, is being managed by Windows admin center. So what Microsoft did is they have actually added a plug in that enables there's nothing but a conversion tool. So just a plug in. It just takes about less than a minute to install. What this does is it migrates the it discovers a vCenter in a customer's environment. It can go up to about two, three instances of vCenter, and then it'll tell you the exact inventory of all the VMs that regardless whether it's Windows, Linux. You can pretty much move all of those VMs into Windows server failover cluster. Very, very straightforward. I personally have done this in my home lab, so I have a demo, video as well. You know, if somebody wants to see it, you know, just shoot me an email. I'll be more than happy to kind of walk you through. Alright. So now we've we've talked about two different options, of migration between Azure local and Windows Server. Let's look at the, the Azure local licensing options here. Now how does a customer license Azure local? Now they can do pay as you go, which means they pay US dollars 10 or 15 AUD per core per month, or they buy, the, the CSP licenses directly from a CSP. Or the third option is they buy, the OEMs queue directly from when they order MX notes. Let's say, for example, they reach out to you and you position MX six fifty, for example. Right? So, then along with the hardware, just like you sell the Microsoft operating system, Windows operating system, you would bundle an OEM SKU along with it. But just keep in mind, you can't sell it after you sell the server. It's got to be you know, it's it's it's it's it's it's got to go with the server. It's tied to the server because it's actually embedded in the in the bios in the factory. So you can't retrofit this license later. So something to keep in mind. With the new version two, we have included the Windows Server data center twenty twenty five, which means if you license all the physical course of Azure local, customers will get unlimited, Windows Server data center twenty twenty five. The version one, which is not called version one, it used to be called, OEMs queue, that had support only for Windows Server '20 20 two. With the new version, now it should be available in DCSE, so you should easily go go and quote, the the OEM's queue version two. Now with regardless of what they buy. Right? Regardless of whether they go with pay as you go, hybrid, or CSP, or OEM licenses, they get free extended security updates for older versions of Windows. Like, for example, Windows Server '2 thousand twelve. Hot patching, it's one of the most talked talked after feat feature in 2000, Windows 2025. I'm gonna cover that, later. Azure policies, it's free. Update manager, it's completely free. It's all done. Update manager is basically the life cycle management capability that's provided in Azure. That's free. Access to a b d at a much reduced cost. Right? So all these benefits they would get, a customer would get regardless of what license they they buy. But if they go with Azure local OEMs queue, it is the cheapest form, and they get all of these benefits. So Azure local, just simplicity. Right? It's only available through the select Microsoft OEMs, and Lenovo is one of them. It's perpetual in nature, which means it lives and dies with the hardware. You can't transfer the license from one MX node running Azure local to the other. Right? Just the same rules for Windows Server or licenses holds true. It's one upfront price. There's no subscription cost. So customers know exactly what their CapEx is looking like for the next five years. Azure local and AKS is free. Windows Server '20 25 data center includes all the features of that particular version, pretty straightforward, and it's all orderable today in DCSE. So go ahead, and convince the customer to actually lead with Azure local OEMs queue because it's so much simpler. It's the cheapest option that's available. Jay, just before you proceed, we have. a question here. Yep. With OEM skew, what happens if there is a server failure? Okay. So when there is a server failure, we generally maintain a different, service queues for OEMs queues. So which means when we send the replacement server, those will be the licenses will be, will be married to that server in the factory before we send it out. Does that help? does the OEM license die on the on the unit, or if the unit is fixed or replaced, does the OEM license remain on the fixed or replaced unit? Yeah. It's Or does it need and needs to be repurchased? yeah. If it's fixed and replaced because it's embedded into the bios, it lives and dies with that hardware. But let's say if you wanna completely replace the server in completely, then, our engineers in the factory would rematch that server and make sure they marry the same license with the new server. Okay. Great. Thank you, Jay. Okay. Cool. So, guys, as you can see, it's it's it's a no brainer. Right? Licensing cost is estimated to be about one third of Azure subscription, whether it's a CSP subscript subscription or the customer is getting it from, enterprise agreement, all of this. Right? Over a five year, that's a significant saving. Right? Now I know most of you some of you are CSPs today, and you have your obligation to retire some of the Microsoft quotas as well quotas as well. But I understand that. Right? But think about it. Right? You also want your customer to come back to you. Because if you save them money, they will come back to you with more business. Right? You don't want me to kinda make them run away from you. Right? So this is where I feel, you know, selling OEM licenses will save so much money for the customer. They won't definitely wanna come back to you and say, oh, this is great. Right? I mean, you saved me so much of money, I which I didn't even realize. Cool. Any other questions, Anthony, before I go into the Windows Server top features? Twenty twenty five top features? Don't have any other questions from the chat, but, guys, if any of you want clarity or have a question, send it through, and I will interrupt and get Jay to answer it for you. Thanks. Awesome. Thank you. Alright, guys. Windows Server 2025 has seen unprecedented growth. It's an understatement. Right? There's no other operating system until today has witnessed such a growth in such a short span of time. It's because of a reason. The number of features that hot patching for example, what is hot patching? So think of hot patching as something that you patch your server without have requiring you to reboot that server. How beautiful is that? So now think about all those monthly patches which are pushed out from Microsoft. Right? If it's Windows Server '20 twenty two let's talk about Windows Server '20 twenty two. Every update that comes in, it could be cumulative update, monthly update, or security update. You would need an operating system to be re rebooted every time that happens. Right? So you're talking about every monthly update, you're talking about 12 reboots in a year. What if I could reduce that reboot to just four reboots in a year? That's about 66% reduction in the total number of reboots. That's what the magic and the secret sauce of hot patching will do. Okay? Now the best part is, how do you enable hot patching? If you're running Windows Server '20 25, you need to arc enable those Windows Server, and then you get the benefits of hot patching. There is a small price that you need to pay, close to about 1.5 US dollars, per core per month, but you get hot patching on Windows Server VMs. But if you're running Azure local, hot patching is completely free. So you don't have to pay that monthly cost for, you know, using this, you know, hot patching feature. So right now, hot patching on Windows Server 2025 or can enable Windows Server twenty twenty five is in public preview, so which means, the Microsoft is not charging you for that. But very soon, they will put a price tag to it. Right? But hot patching is still one of the most sought after features for Windows Server '20 five five. Okay? I recently helped one of the one of the partners, where they had Windows Server '2 thousand eight, but they wanted to do an upgrade to Windows Server '20 25. In a normal circumstance, that would be absolutely no go. Because until now, no operating system has supported n minus four media upgrade, but Windows Server twenty twenty five does support it. So which means you can upgrade from Windows Server 2,008 directly into Windows Server twenty twenty five. And I have done that personally. It's just magical. It's actually on my LinkedIn post. So, guys, it's it's there is so much goodness to talk about Windows Server twenty twenty five. It's a no brainer, you know, to convince the customer it's so easy because you have so many amazing features here. Now think about scalability. Think about, all the goodness of, that you get with Windows Server. Now if you see, there's a Windows Server twenty twenty five VM. It's an Azure VM. It's running in Azure data center. It's running with 29.7 terabytes of RAM and 1,792 virtual course. And if you think this is this is the this is the biggest, no. It's not. Today, Windows Server host can go up to about four petabytes of RAM, up to 2,048 logical processors, and VM can go up to about 240. We saw 29.7 terabytes, but it can go up to about two forty TB of RAM per VM and go up to about 2,048 virtual process. You're talking about serious, serious scaling here. So GPU partition. I know a lot of customers are today talking about GPU capability. They wanna be able to do inferencing at the edge. They wanna be able to kind of, bring AI to work to the edge. And without GPU, you you you simply cannot, you know, dream of that. Right? So with GPU comes a lot of manageability aspect. For example, can I do GPU partitioning? What is GPU partitioning? You divide a GPU into virtual GPU. Just like, you know, physical course, you can divide them into virtual course, the CPU. You could do the same thing for, for GPUs as well. So you could you could probably have one a two GPU sliced into eight virtual GPUs or one a 16 GPU, Nvidia a 16 sliced into about four, you know, a 16 GPU, virtual GPUs. So you could do that as well. So all this all of this can be, is supported by, by Windows Server 2025. And not just that, it does support a VM that you allocate a GPU partition into a particular VM, those VMs can be live migrated across, two different hosts. Okay? So Windows Server 2025 supports that. And GPU p with high availability, GPU pools direct attach. For example, our direct the discreet device attachment DDA, so which means you assign the entire GPU. Don't slice it. You you assign the entire GPU to one single VM. You could do that as well. Okay? So you have lots of options like dynamic processor compatibility, work, you know, work group clusters. You don't really need to have, active directory domain controllers. You can just deal with work group and create a hyper v cluster, native r e REFS and d dup do deduplication and compression. ATC, network ATC, and accelerated networking, these are some of the features that actually taken from Azure local into Windows Server '20 twenty five. Now keep think about think of think of both of these technologies. Right? Both of these technologies are powered by Windows Server 2025 kernel. Right? That's the one that powers both of them. Right? So it has different use cases, but then the underlying nuts and bolts is Windows Server 2025 kernel. Okay? So we're bringing all the goodness. So both of these, products are actually exchanging all the goodness between them. Right? So anything that new feature that comes into, Azure local will land in Windows Server twenty twenty five, and the same thing holds true. Any new feature that comes into Windows Server '20 25 will eventually land into Azure local as well. And, NVMe storage, for example, this is something that's that's that's seen unprecedented, IOPS. Right? For example, if you're comparing this is purely comparing between Windows Server '20 twenty two with NVMe local storage. The IOPS has gone up by about 60%. K? Alright. So, just summarizing, actually, how much time do we have? Just giving a time check here. We have approximately fifteen minutes. Okay. That's great. I think that's that's a great segue into our quiz. But just in summary, guys, I think this is very, very important. Always always attach a Lenovo OEM SKU for every quote that you send out. Right? Include so if the customer says, I don't need a quote, just include that as an optional quote. You don't have to add it to the main quote. Just send it as an optional code. That way, they get to see the the numbers in terms of what's the price they're paying. Right? Even if one, two of them will actually have a look at it and say, oh my goodness. This is way too cheaper. Maybe I should procure OEM licenses instead of, you know, from enterprise agreement or from CSP. And this is against. Don't leave money on the table. There's money that's lying on the table. Don't leave it. Ask simple questions about OS, CALS, database. That can potentially increase your overall quotas by about two to three x. And if it's hybrid use case, like, let's say customer has Azure presence today and they wanna manage, on premises infrastructure from the Azure control plane, lead with Azure local, which is hybrid. For everything else, it's Windows server, especially if the customer wants to operate in a disconnected environment. Cost is also, I'm seeing, one of the reasons why customers some customers prefer Windows Server '20 twenty five as well. But, yeah, it's it depends on, you know, how you wanna kind of position. Like I said, always ask the question, do you need the OS or CALS regardless of the hypervisor? That's the bottom line. They may be running Nutanix. They may be running, VMware. That's fine because the VMs that are running on top of these hypervisors would still need to be licensed. So ask these questions. So I'm gonna provide share these slides. They're gonna be important links. You know, DCSE, I think most of you may have access to it. There's a there's a bunch of collaterals. There are bunch of videos that we pushed out on the Lenovo sales portal. Very, very amazing videos about Azure Arc. If you wanna find out what is Azure Arc, there are some videos that we recently recorded. So Lenovo sales portal is is is the place to go. Alright. So we are ready. Are we ready for quiz? Any other questions before before we get on to the quiz part? Yes. I have one question here. Can you please expand on which scenarios an OEM license can be used? Okay. So if the customer, you know, does not upgrade the operating system frequently, like I said, in two to three years. Right? They this I'm talking about guest VMs. And if the customer says, I don't want to really go into the subscription model because once I go into the subscription model, I I'm pretty much dictated by either a CSP or Microsoft because they have flexibility to increase the price every year. Right? So which means I lose that control. So, the other option that I see is they don't really care about, you know, decommissioning their hardware in the next five years. Because if you if they are if if they're not gonna do it, they're gonna recover this cost within three years easily. Right? So that's why I keep saying as the, you know, the customer says I have nothing to do upgrade, whether it's operating system or the hardware, and I don't wanna get into the, the weeds of, subscription based kind of licenses because it can get really, really expensive as as as time goes on. So for those customers, you're always this is about educating them, to be very honest. You can really enforce your thoughts on why Azure local OEMs queue actually fits the bill for the customer. Think about it. Right? Not like I said, not all customers will actually upgrade the OS. They're not they're sitting there to click that upgrade button. They take a lot of time to upgrade. Okay. That's a great. question. I hope that answers that question. If there's any more questions, send it through. Onto. the quiz, So, Jay. yeah, should we kick off the quiz then? I'm just waiting for your green signal, Anthony. Yes. Absolutely. Yep. Okay. Cool. Quest time, guys. Question number one. Why rock licenses matter? It is the cheapest in the market. It is tested, certified, and supported by Lenovo, so customers have the peace of mind. License is perpetual and easy to procure, including the licenses along with the hardware increases my quota by about two to three x and all of the above. I'm just gonna give ten seconds. I, b, c, d, c. oh, sorry. ABCDE. Jay? I'm sorry, guys. If somebody somebody has answered E, we'll give it to them. Or. even even if if you say all of the above, that's fine. I'm I'm so sorry about that. No. That's okay. I'm just trying to interpret look. I have a c here. The first c that I received, I'm gonna assume that is the all of the above one. Mark, well done. Awesome. Awesome. You get you get yourself prize. Okay. That's the answer. You're right. Yep. Okay. The next question, when can I sell Lenovo Cals? I can't sell Lenovo Cals, option number a. Option b, can only be bundled with a rock license. Option c, Lenovo Cals can be sold even if the customer didn't purchase the rock license from from us. And then option oh, it should have been option d. I don't know. I I need to I need to go back to my schooling. Option d, only Microsoft is authorized to sell CALS. Something that I covered during my presentation as well. Alright. We have some answers here. Why don't you give us the solution, Jay? Okay. Sure. This is the answer. Jose, you've got the answer correct. Awesome. Congratulations. Even though there were two c's, but I know I know you are. Yep. I know what you mean. Oh, looks like I think both of us overlooked Anthony. So sorry about. that. That's alright. Okay. Question number three, guys. Which of the following statement is true regarding Azure local OEMs queue version two supports unlimited Windows Server twenty twenty five data center guest VMs. This license can be ordered anytime, can be purchased from CSPs only, can be transferred to another server, can be more expensive than EA or CSP over five years? Okay. I think have got my a, new, c, answers. d, e correct. Yeah. Well done. Alright. What what's the answer, Jay? Okay. The answer is supports unlimited Windows Server twenty twenty five data center guest VMs. So all the remaining is not true because this license can't be transferred. It cannot be purchased from CSPs. It's got to be purchased from Lenovo only, which is only through the raw part. Can be transferred? No. It can't. Can be more expensive? No. It's not. It's actually one third of the cost or either CSP or enterprise agreement over the or or five years. Michelle, congratulations. Well done. You've got a prize headed your way. And And hello, by the way. Haven't seen you in a little while. Awesome. Well done, guys. That's about it, guys. Any final thoughts or any questions that you want me to answer? There is one question here. Can you please take us through essential versus standard edition again? Trying to think of different use cases for them. Sure. Alright. So let's go here. Can you see can you still see my screen? Not yet? Oh, sorry. I think I need to reshare again. Just give me a second. We will send out slides and recording, by the Yeah. guys. We will is will. send out, but So. yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna share this. So Windows Server essentials is basically it's ideally suited for very small organizations who have about less than 25 users or less than 50 devices, and you don't have to separately sell them CALS because it's covered within the license itself. That's why it says 25 users. CALS not required. You can do either one physical OSC or one virtual OSC. So OSC is operating system environment. Either you can do actually one physical OS completely, or you can actually spin up enable Hyper V and install a virtual machine, just one virtual machine. Windows server standard on the other hand, you could do two VMs, but you would need. Okay? For every device that that's trying to access or a user that's trying to access would require a license, unlike essentials. And it's ideal for customers with physical or minimal, virtualized environment. So you can do two VMs, the underlying base hypervisor, And then on top of it, you can actually have two virtual machines that are running. And if you need two more, you need to buy additional 16 core licenses, so then it'll give you four total VMs. Does that answer? Does Azure local oh, just, Marut, if you've got any follow-up questions, put it in the chat. And a subsequent question from Jose, does does your local include unlimited RDS cows? No. So audio scales or any device scales is separate. Right? This is you need to buy. For example, let's say, if you're if you're host so Azure local is your host operating system. Right? That's your host OS. That's where it's running. And you're running Windows Server '20 twenty five, you know, licensing server or the audio session on top of it, And every device that's trying to access that server would require CALs, remote or audio's CALs, or user CALs, for example. Right? So that's that's a given. So you would need additional calls. It does not cover cals separately. Cals is separate. Sorry. Well, good. Great. Well, I mean, unless there are any any final questions, we will wrap the session there. We'll share the recording with everybody, and congratulations to our winners. I have your details already. When you registered, you provided me with your information. So I'll send through an email and organize the logistics to ship those goods out to you. Thanks very much, everybody. Thank you. Have a, great. rest of the day, and thanks, bye. Jay, for presenting. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Bye bye.