Five Key Updates on WS2012 ESUs enabled by Azure Arc

We have a myriad of key updates for customers enrolled in WS2012/R2 ESUs enabled by Azure Arc! As we continue to refine and expand the offer, investments have focused on reducing friction and improve the usability of WS2012/R2 ESUs enabled by Azure Arc. We’re excited to announce our brand-new usage view, preview of the transition scenario, and improvements to pre-requisites, billing, and included capabilities.

1. The ESU Usage View is now Public Preview for customers in Azure Portal. With the ESU Usage View, customers get visibility into their coverage of Azure Arc-enabled WS2012/R2 servers with Extended security Updates. Moreover, the view surfaces licenses that may be over-provisioned or under-provisioned comparing the licensed cores with linked servers helping ensuring licensing compliance. The ESU Usage View offers a bird’s eye summary for the ESU Deployment and Licensing for customers. 

2. The ESU Transition Scenario from Volume Licensing to Azure Arc is now in Public Preview. Customers can using Azure CLI to programmatically generate new licenses, specifying the new Volume License Details parameter in az connectedmachine license | Microsoft Learn their Year 1 Volume Licensing entitlements by entering their respective Invoice Numbers. By specifying Year 1 Volume Licensing entitlements, the provisioned WS2012/R2 ESU Azure Arc licenses will not be backbilled for Year 1 with billing starting from Year 2 of WS2012/R2 ESUs in October 2024. Customers must specify this entitlement in their license provisioning to be exempt from Year 1 back billing, with the Portal Experience for this to be available by July end. 
3. Customers no longer need Intermediate Certificates to receive WS2012/R2 ESUs through Azure Arc. Customers must update to Connected Machine Agent Version 1.40 or higher and install the Windows Server Servicing Stack Update (SSU) for April 2024 to eliminate the need for intermediate certificate installation and updates. For customers that are not running the sufficient version or have not downloaded the SSU, the intermediate certificates continue to be documented at: How to troubleshoot delivery of Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2012 through Azure Arc - Azure Arc | Microsoft Learn.
4. Azure Management services are included with WS2012/R2 ESUs enabled by Azure Arc. These capabilities have and continue to be available free of charge for servers enrolled in WS2012/R2 ESUs through Azure Arc. Capabilities include Azure Update Manager affording Patch Assessment and Delivery seamlessly from Azure, Azure Change Tracking and Inventory providing visibility into software on Arc-enabled servers, and Azure Machine Configuration (Azure Policy Guest Configuration) allowing for Desired State Configuration and Governance scenarios.
5. Azure Arc ESU billing is independent of the linkage and server status of activated licenses. Activated licenses are charged based on their edition (Standard, Datacenter) and number of cores, irrespective of whether they are linked to any servers and the status of the servers.  This provides more consistent and standardized billing to customers

To learn more about the latest with Azure Arc-enabled servers and join our monthly community calls, visit https://aka.ms/ArcServerForumSignup.