Many Microsoft 365 services are maintained as separate add-on products, often in two plans, which customers can purchase to augment the capabilities of their base licenses.

For example, the IT administrators for an organization might decide that the price of purchasing Microsoft 365 Enterprise E5 licenses for all of their users is just too high and that the users don’t need all of the advanced features in the E5 product anyway. They choose the Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 subscription instead, representing substantial cost savings.

Many administrators were attracted to the E5 product because it includes Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, which provides endpoint detection and automated incident remediation. However, this feature alone was not enough to justify the difference in price between E3 and E5. Later, the administrators discovered they could purchase the Microsoft 365 E3 subscriptions as their users’ base license and then purchase Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 as an add-on license. For this organization, the total cost of the two subscriptions was far less than the price of Microsoft 365 E5.

Microsoft has many add-on products that allow administrators to assemble a working environment with a curated selection of features. Add-on licenses come in two types, as follows:

• Traditional add-on An add-on license linked to a particular base subscription. The add-on subscription is also terminated if the base subscription lapses or is canceled.
• Standalone add-on An add-on license that appears as a separate subscription on the Billing pages in the Microsoft 365 admin center, with its own expiration date, independent of the base subscription.

Implementing best practices

As mentioned throughout this book, the Microsoft 365 product is a bundle of services, many of which remain available as separate subscriptions. In addition, subscriptions are available for combinations of individual features within these products.

Finally, to further complicate the picture, combining different licenses in a single Microsoft Entra ID tenancy is possible. With all these options available, organizations contemplating a migration to a cloud-based infrastructure or thinking of adding cloud services to an on-premises infrastructure should design a licensing strategy fulfilling the following requirements:

• Provide the organization’s users with the services they need
• Avoid providing users with unnecessary services that complicate the maintenance and support processes
• Minimize subscription costs

Generally speaking, a Microsoft 365 subscription will likely be significantly less expensive than purchasing subscriptions for each component separately. This might be true even if some users do not need all the Microsoft 365 components.

Obviously, the simplest solution is to choose one Microsoft 365 product and purchase the same subscription for all the organization’s users. This can easily fulfill the first of the requirements but might not be a solution for the other two.

Depending on the nature of the business the organization is engaged in, an Enterprise E5 subscription might be suitable for some users, but there might also be many workers who do not need all the applications and services included in Enterprise E5. Depending on the number of users in each group, the expense of purchasing E5 subscriptions for everyone could be extremely wasteful and require additional administrative effort to provide customized environments for the different user groups. This is one of the primary reasons why Microsoft offers the Microsoft 365 F1 subscription for first-line workers.

Note Microsoft 365 F1

For more information on the Microsoft 365 F1 package, see the “Microsoft 365 Frontline” section earlier in this chapter.

Therefore, the best practice is to compare the features included in each of the Microsoft 365 licenses with the requirements of the various types of users in the organization. In a large enterprise, this can be a complicated process, but in the case of a major migration like this, prior planning is crucial and can save a great deal of expense and effort.

Quick check

Which of the following is not one of the three phases of the Microsoft compliance effort?

1. Simplify
2. Assess
3. Protect
4. Respond

Quick check answer

Which of the following is not one of the three phases of the Microsoft compliance effort?

1. The three phases of the Microsoft compliance effort are Assess, Protect, and Respond. Simplify is not one of the three phases.

Skill 4.3: Identify support options for Microsoft 365 services

For many IT professionals, there are important concerns about what happens after their organization commits itself to the use of cloud-based applications and services. These issues include concerns about downtime, monitoring the continuity of Microsoft services, and the product support provided by Microsoft and its partners.