Forum Discussion
Onboarding servers to MDE after September 2022
Perhaps these questions fall more under the Defender of Cloud purview since this concerns Defender for Servers.
Would you be able to shed any light on these questions?
Nothing that can be shared in regards to this matter?
We have received some mixed answers, especially about the use of onboarding scripts.
I have a colleague that was told that the use of the regular onboarding scripts require the standalone MDE for Servers SKU, and that these onboarding scripts may not be available heading forward, making automatic provisioning through Defender for Cloud mandatory.
This honestly sounded a bit odd to me.
- I work for a CSP, and unfortunately we've been receiving mixed messaging from Microsoft with the DforE Server license. Initially we were told (through Microsoft webinars, etc., Sept-Nov 2022) that any servers would need to be onboarded through Defender for Servers (Azure). But Microsoft are still sending us our monthly Price Files with DforE Server SKUs, so customer can still purchase this license. And of course for organisations who don't use Azure, they don't want to have to get an Azure Subscription set up, Azure Arc, learn about how Azure works, etc., purely to defend their servers. I have asked the question here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-defender-for-endpoint/defender-for-endpoint-server-sku-is-it-still-valid/m-p/3726569 (no reply as yet) and also had our Support team log a ticket with Microsoft to try to get a definitive answer. My hunch is that initially Microsoft wanted to have servers onboarded through Defender for Servers, but due to the backlash (their 'Demystifying Defender for Servers' webinar is a case in point) they are re-thinking this approach. I could be wrong, but until we have a definitive answer from Microsoft, we're in the dark.
Hi hmannila2021,
Were you able to get a definitive answer on this one.
I could still find the SKU in the pricelist and have raised a support case but seems like the MS team handling my case doesn't know. Everything on the web is routing us towards Defender for Cloud but my customer needs it for on premises servers off course and doesn't use Azure.
Any information on this would be really helpful.
- Hi Bharat07 - here is what Microsoft have cleared up in the ticket I raised:
Defender for Endpoint for Servers is now end of life, but it’s still included in the Price Files Microsoft send us at the start of each calendar month. This was previously an add-on license for any on-prem servers (rather than clients).
Therefore, any customer already purchasing this license, can renew the license (as stated by Renato from Microsoft). But for any customer not already purchasing this license, for their on-prem servers they should use:
- Defender for Servers (even if they *only* have on-prem servers)
- or Defender for Business Servers (which only covers on-prem servers).
