May update: What’s New in Azure for Partners

News and Announcements

• MCAPS Start for Partners returns on July 22: Get ready for the FY27 planning event so you can start defining your Frontier Transformation roadmap and focusing your efforts where demand will be strongest. At MCAPS Start for Partners, you'll hear directly from Microsoft executives including Judson Althoff and Nicole Dezen on FY27 priorities, investments, and partner opportunities so you can align to where Microsoft is investing and how to engage the market. Through a keynote and breakout sessions, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how Frontier Transformation is reshaping customer expectations and where that shift is creating new opportunities for you to lead. Join us to get actionable next steps to engage sellers, activate co-sell motions, and scale pipeline. Save the date!  

• Advance database modernization with Azure Accelerate for Databases: Help organizations modernize their data estates and build new AI-ready capabilities on Azure more seamlessly with Azure Accelerate for Databases. This offering combines Microsoft-led delivery through Cloud Accelerate Factory, Azure specialized partner expertise, flexible savings and investments, and role-based Data and AI skilling to unlock an AI-ready foundation for innovation. 

• GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing starting June 1, 2026: Instead of counting premium requests, every Copilot plan will include a monthly allotment of GitHub AI Credits, with the option for paid plans to purchase additional usage. Usage will be calculated based on token consumption, including input, output, and cached tokens, using the listed API rates for each model. This change aligns Copilot pricing with actual usage and is an important step toward a sustainable, reliable Copilot business and experience for all users. Learn more and access partner resources. 

Incentives and Offers

• Explore the new guided experience for incentives: Now delivered through an online experience, the Microsoft Commercial Partner Incentives Guide offers clear navigation, direct paths to engagement, and faster access to up-to-date guidance. With this new experience, you can search incentives by category to find go-to-market-aligned opportunities; quickly confirm eligibility so you can target where you invest time and effort; and take action. Explore the digital incentives guide experience and join one of our upcoming partner community calls for the Americas and EMEA or Asia to share feedback so we can continue to evolve the experience.  

• Accelerate Microsoft Defender for Cloud adoption with partner investments: Security is a baseline expectation for customers—which is why we've put together opportunities for you to deliver a built-in security approach and drive growth. Complete the Cloud Security Envisioning Workshop to sharpen your approach to engaging customers in security discussions earlier in their cloud journey. We also encourage you to attain the Cloud Security specialization to unlock continued access to the Envisioning Workshop—along with other targeted benefits—to strengthen your capabilities leading secure cloud transformation. 

• Tap into Microsoft resources to accelerate migrations and modernization: Access robust migration and modernization resources like Azure Accelerate, Cloud Accelerate Factory, and Dr Migrate. Nominate projects for Azure Accelerate, a unified offering that supports faster deal closure and predictable payouts for implementations. Plan cloud migrations with AI assistance from Dr Migrate. And access no-cost deployment assistance for more than 30 Azure services with Cloud Accelerate Factory. Review our streamlined incentives guide for more information on tools and resources built for your customer migrations and modernization projects. 

• Apply for access to preview Microsoft Azure HorizonDB: A fully managed Postgres-compatible database service designed to meet the needs of modern enterprise workloads, Azure HorizonDB is designed to support applications across the entire workload spectrum from the first line of code in a new app to the migration of large-scale, mission-critical solutions. Built for enterprises, Azure HorizonDB introduces new levels of performance and scalability to PostgreSQL. Apply now to get hands-on experience with this database experience during the preview period. 

Skilling and Events

• Dive deep on real code, systems, and workflows at Microsoft Build: Register today for the June 2–3 event. Join us in person in San Francisco or tune in remotely to learn from the teams building and scaling AI, connect with the developer community, and learn strategies to ship smarter AI.  

• Develop expertise in Azure Database for PostgreSQL: Design secure, scalable architectures, perform seamless migrations from multiple platforms, and build AI-powered applications using vector search and GraphRAG. Labs provide practical experience for modernization, high availability, and intelligent innovation. Register now for our June 16–18 Project Ready workshop.  

• Start building your team’s Microsoft Fabric capabilities after FabCon and SQLCon: Take advantage of these technical trainings to equip your team with hands-on learning opportunities across key Fabric offerings: Fabric Databases and Data Factory (May 12–14) and Fabric Data Agents and Fabric IQ (June 9–11). Microsoft will also be hosting a Microsoft Fabric Sales Accelerate skilling event on May 27 (Americas) and May 28 (Asia and EMEA) to empower you to win data platform conversations.  

• Access the Fabric Center of Excellence Accelerator: Join a high-impact, four-day virtual training designed to speed your DP-600 and DP-700 certifications, deepen your practical knowledge, and create immediate, customer-ready capability. This training will be offered across multiple time zones with cohorts in May and June. To get more information and participate, email fabricpartnersteam@microsoft.com with your organization name, selected certification track (DP-600 or DP-700), estimated number of participants, and target timeframe. 

• Select Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine Reserved Instances (RIs) ending: Starting July 1, 2026, purchases and renewals will no longer be available for Azure Reserved Virtual Machines Instances (RIs) for select VM series. One-year RIs will no longer be available for the Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls, and Lsv2 VM series. One-year and three-year RIs will no longer be available for the Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, and Esv3 VM series. We strongly recommend reviewing your current RI orders and taking necessary action to prevent lapse in commitment savings. Review the documentation for more information on how to prepare.  

• Get ready for the 2026 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards: It's almost that time of year again—the Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards are quickly approaching. Nominations open on June 1 and close on July 7. Learn more about the awards, start preparing your organization’s submissions, and be on the lookout for more details coming in mid-May. 

Go-To-Market

• Check out new Microsoft Azure go-to-market assets for SMBs: Partners are uniquely positioned to turn adoption and cloud investments into tangible impact for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with Microsoft Azure. Our robust collection of Azure SMB go-to-market assets are designed so you can quickly build pipeline, grow your SMB customer base, and expand existing workloads while leading secure cloud transformations at scale. Explore the collection now. 

• Review the TEI partner opportunity: Explore the Database accelerate page for independent, data-backed validation of the profitability and growth potential of building an Azure practice so you can help customers justify the investment, prioritize their focus areas, and confidently scale their businesses across enterprise and SMB segments. 

• Drive database cost savings for customers with savings plans for databases: These plans can deliver strong savings across customers’ database estates, with flexibility that follows the database estate as it grows, scales, and modernizes. Learn how to use these plans for your customers and tap into our refreshed database narrative to support your conversations. 

• Standardized pricing for Extended Security Updates is now available: The new pricing model impacts SQL Server and Windows products including Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB and Windows Server, offering customers consistent pricing across clouds and purchasing channels. Read the blog for more details, and connect with SQL Server and Azure SQL experts in the SQL partner community. 

• Azure SRE Agent is now generally available: Azure SRE Agent offers AI‑powered incident management and resource optimization with extensible automation via custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations. Read the Apps on Azure blog to learn how Azure SRE Agent can improve uptime and reduce operational toil. 

• Microsoft has launched new Cloud Adoption Framework guidance for data: Help your customers prepare for an AI-first future by getting their data estates organized for success and ensuring you are providing services that align with Microsoft best practices. Dive into the guidance here. 

Partner success stories

• System performance at Apollo Hospitals reaches 99.85% uptime after migrating to Azure: Apollo Hospitals needed a more scalable, flexible way to manage digital care delivery across its network of more than 74 hospitals. It shifted from a fragmented on-premises setup to Microsoft Azure, replaced its back end with Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and streamlined delivery via Azure DevOps. This modernized hospital systems and enhanced scalability, visibility, and security, improving system uptime to 99.95%. Deployment timelines dropped by 40%, and teams now work with greater speed, resilience, and readiness to support future innovation.  

• Microsoft Fabric helps improve data accuracy by bringing data into a single source of truth: Learn how partners are helping Microsoft customers unify data for real-time insights, improve data accuracy, accelerate innovation, and drive intelligent transformation, all through the power of Microsoft Fabric. 

• Veeam strengthens data resilience for Batterjee Medical College: As Batterjee Medical College expanded its hybrid learning environment and cloud footprint, it needed a unified approach to protecting critical data across on‑premises and cloud systems. Working with Veeam, the institution improved data resilience and accelerated recovery, reducing recovery times by up to 80% while maintaining continuity across a growing multiregional education environment. 
   
• Infosys modernizes education systems with large‑scale Azure migration: A major school district partnered with Infosys to modernize its legacy Student Information System and migrate it to Microsoft Azure. The cloud‑based platform improved performance during peak demand, reduced operational strain, and created a scalable foundation for future innovation—supporting one of the largest Azure‑based SIS deployments in education. 
    
• EPAM builds an AI assistant to streamline retail operations at Albert Heijn: EPAM worked with Albert Heijn to deploy a secure, Azure‑based AI assistant integrated into the retailer’s employee app. The solution streamlined daily store workflows, surfaced product and inventory information faster, and laid the groundwork for broader enterprise AI adoption across retail operations. 
• practices. Dive into the guidance here. 

Resources

• Tackle migration planning bottlenecks with Azure Migrate: Every migration starts with the same questions: what do we have, and where should it go? Historically, that process has taken weeks. Azure Migrate collapses that entire process into a single workflow, cutting migration planning from weeks to hours with a repeatable workshop-to-deck motion that accelerates migrations and app modernization. Starting with the Azure Migrate Collector, you can scan your estate offline, enrich the inventory with tags and application groupings, and generate a PowerPoint report that summarizes modernization and lift-and-shift recommendations, security posture, and cost insights for your next stakeholder meeting. Review the Learn page now for more information. 

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