December 2023 Newsletter

What’s New in the Hybrid Data Center?

VMware

Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware has created a flurry of changes, including layoffs and plans to spin off “non-core assets” like End-User Computing (Horizon, Workspace ONE) and endpoint security (Carbon Black) businesses. We know this could be alarming to our current Horizon customers. The timelines haven’t been addressed, but we’re still committed to providing the best Managed Services support of current customers. We also have options to migrate to more future-forward VDI or managed desktop and security services. You can view those options on our blog here.

Azure VMware Solution

VMware vSphere 8.0 Rollout for AVS

VMware vSphere 8.0 has begun rolling out to customer environments as of the end of November. It’s critically important that customers keep backup and replication software up-to-date. If you are running in AVS, ensure the services that connect to vCenter support vSphere 8—so update and patch!

AV64 SKU

The AV64 node is built on Intel Xeon Platinum 8370C CPUs with a total of 64 physical cores, 1 TB of memory and 15.4 TB of total storage. The AV64 SKU can be used for extending existing Azure VMware Solution private clouds built on AV36, AV36P, or AV52 node sizes.

Five-Year Reserved Instance

A Five-Year Reserved Instance promotion is available for Azure VMware Solution until March 31, 2024 for customers looking to lock-in VMware solution costs for multiple years.

Pure Cloud Block Store

In Public Preview, customers can use Pure Cloud Block Store from Pure Storage to scale compute and storage independently for storage heavy workloads. With Pure Cloud Block Store, customers can right size their storage and achieve sizeable savings in the process.

Nutanix

Nutanix laid out important differences between multicloud and multiple cloud in a great blog.
As of October 2023, you may see a new line item SKU on your renewal quotes. The primary purpose of the Reinstatement Fee SKU is to ensure Nutanix customers are aware of fees that could possibly incur if they do not exercise timely renewals.

Please reach out to your eGroup | Enabling Technologies AE if you have any questions.

What’s New in Microsoft?

Copilot(s) and AI

Microsoft has rolled out Copilot in Windows (in preview) to eligible, non-managed Windows 10 devices running Home and Pro editions of W10/22H2. Enterprise, Education, and Pro devices managed by organizations will be included later.
Microsoft 365 Copilot with commercial data protection (formerly Bing Chat Enterprise) was available 12/1.
By mid-December 2023, admins will receive an email with their organization’s monthly search report, showing tenant search metrics and insights and allowing administrators to understand how search performed.
By late January, the Microsoft Edge management service will roll out for preview. This new feature allows IT admins to configure all AI-related policies in one single page, enhancing security for their users and devices.
Microsoft is introducing a new people experiences category in Adoption Score in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. The new category helps organizations understand the adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot features.

Microsoft 365

The Microsoft 365 app browser extension (formerly named Office browser extension)—a free extension available on Edge and Chrome that gives access to Microsoft 365 apps and documents on the web—will reach end of support on January 15th, 2024.
Public preview of Microsoft 365 Backup Service is available now. This service provides customers with a consistent, cross product solution, to recover their M365 data from cataclysmic events and user error.
The Office 365 logo will be replaced with the Microsoft 365 logo throughout Outlook Mobile for Android, as will references to the account type.

Purview

Microsoft rolled back the ability for users to access the Microsoft Purview compliance portal to check who has tried accessing their sensitivity-labeled and encrypted local Office files and revoke access when needed. They’ll alert us when they’re back on track.
In Public Preview now, DLP (Data Loss Prevention) alerts can be filtered in Microsoft 365 Defender portal by File Name or path.
Organizations can click the “Go Hunt” dropdown from the DLP alert page in Microsoft Defender XDR and select from a list of pre-populated queries for common scenarios such as understanding if a file is shared externally, participants of Teams meetings, and more.
Now, Insider Risk Management admins can add any SharePoint sites as priority content or exclude certain SharePoint sites in policies by searching the site names or using the exact URLs.
In early January, Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management will be rolling out the public preview of “browsed to generative AI websites” indicator.
By now, Purview Endpoint Protection can scan two new elements: “Document Property is:” Detects documents with custom properties matching the specified values and “Document Name contains words or phrases:” where the file name contains any of the words or phrases you specify.
Simulation mode in DLP provides admins with an isolated experience to try a policy, assess its impact, and build confidence to eventually reduce the time to policy enforcement. Simulation mode is an enhancement to the existing test mode behavior.

Entra ID

Beginning January 2024, Microsoft Entra ID will support device-bound passkeys stored on computers and mobile devices as an authentication method in preview, in addition to the existing support for FIDO2 security keys. This enables phishing-resistant authentication using devices users already have.

Stream

Microsoft will retire Stream (Classic) on April 15, 2024, and all videos on Stream (Classic) will be deleted after the retirement date.
In the new Stream, make videos interactive by adding a survey, quiz, or poll using Microsoft Forms. You can add forms anywhere in the video timeline. Go to Forms to view responses and share a summary link with answers and scores in Microsoft Forms.
Make videos more engaging by adding annotations that can include hyperlinks and text. Call out important moments or share documents and other links to additional resources, anywhere in the video timeline to help guide your viewers to the right information.

Teams

By mid-February, “Voice isolation” will allow you to enjoy clear and uninterrupted calls or meetings, no matter where you are. This feature uses AI to filter out all background noise, including other people’s voices, powered by Microsoft’s advanced deep learning, speech services, and audio processing technology,
By mid-February, Android-based Teams devices (Teams Rooms on Android, Teams Phones, Panels, and Displays) will start receiving automatic updates of the Teams app. The guardrails and features to manage the updates remain similar to those for automatic firmware updates.
Earlier this year, the new Microsoft device ecosystem platform built on the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) was announced, delivering state-of-the-art security, reliability, and manageability with Microsoft Intune. Microsoft Teams Android devices will be migrating to this platform. The first step in the migration is a firmware update to Microsoft Teams Android devices in the first half of 2024. The firmware update will move devices from Android device administrator to Android AOSP management. Devices will continue to remain signed in after the firmware upgrade. HOWEVER, certain legacy devices will not receive the firmware upgrade for Android (AOSP) management in Intune. These devices will continue using Device Administrator and will be supported until August 30, 2024 including: AudioCodes C448HD, AudioCodes C450HD, Yealink VP59, Yealink MP52, AudioCodes RXV80.
Teams is making updates to in-call user experiences on the mobile app. The Transfer, Share, and Hold options will now be on the call stage, making it easier for users to access these calling capabilities.
Users can now view, edit, and create collaborative notes including agenda, notes, and follow-up tasks on Teams for iOS and Android, similarly with what users can do on Teams for desktop.
Users will be able to narrow down their search results by picking a specific domain like files, group chat, or Teams. You can find things faster by also typing a person’s name.
Green Room will be available on standard Office/Microsoft 365 Enterprise E1/E3/E5 and Education A1/A3/A5 licenses. It will no longer need a Premium license for meetings, webinars, and town halls.
Admins will soon be able to block internal users from accessing chats when these users join meetings organized on external non-trusted tenants, including cross-cloud join.

SharePoint

An update to Microsoft Search will allow administrators to change result layouts for select SharePoint content using adaptive cards with Result Type feature.
By late January, the Quick Access feature will allow users to access shared libraries from both their SharePoint and Teams locations. Currently, users experience some frustration when using Office products because of all different routes that they must use to access all their content. This new backstage experience will deliver a more consistent storage location experience across M365 apps.
SharePoint eSignature is rolling out by end of Q1 in 2024. It’s Microsoft’s first-party electronic signature service which allows users to easily request eSignatures on a PDF document via SharePoint online. Signers can add their electronic signature, saving the signed documents securely back to SharePoint.

OneDrive for Business

By February, on Windows and macOS devices running the OneDrive sync app, Microsoft will enable “Offline mode” to continue to work with the OneDrive web app in a browser or Teams, even when offline.

Viva Goals

Viva Goals is launching a new team setup experience that enables end users to leverage their existing Microsoft 365 groups that they already own to create teams in Teams, SharePoint, and other cloud apps.
Customers will soon be able to programmatically export Viva Goals data in an Explorer View via Microsoft Graph APIs. Today, customers must manually export the data in an Explorer View.
Viva Home is coming, a single web destination for your employees to access all their licensed Viva apps.

Exchange Outlook

The FindTime add-in will stop working and be removed from Outlook for Windows, Web, and Mac. Scheduling Poll is the replacement feature, which is built directly into Outlook clients for all users as a native feature.
Starting mid-January 2024, users will be able to pick a folder when saving attachments to their system in the new Outlook for Windows. Previously, all attachments downloaded were saved to a default local folder, which users could not change.
By the end of January 2024, Microsoft will stop honoring the mail flow rule which helps you track end-user reporting. Any mail flow rules (or Exchange transport rules) which you have for the addresses: phish@office365.microsoft.com, junk@office365.microsoft.com, and not_junk@office365.microsoft.com won’t be honored as the agent won’t be receiving signals for these addresses.

OneNote

OneNote for Windows 10 will retire in 2025, aligned with the end of support of Windows 10.

Need assistance with any of the updates listed above?

Contact our team of experts today to see how these updates may impact your workflow or organization!

Microsoft Azure Services

Security Services

Microsoft 365 Services

Consulting Services

Hybrid Data Center Services

Data, AI, Apps & Automation

Managed Services

VMware vSphere 8.0 Rollout for AVS

AV64 SKU

Five-Year Reserved Instance

Need assistance with any of the updates listed above?