Support for M365 Apps (O365) on Windows 2022

Elden_Christensen, thanks for your summary of current options. We are facing a decision for our hosting service (CSP, SPLA) this year on which technical basis our software and M365 can be provided to customers in the future. Currently, we are running Windows Server (RDS) in conjunction with M365 because this combination offers the best cost-benefit relation for our high standardized workloads.

We would welcome a decision for a general M365 support in the mainstream support phase of the Windows Server (know-how, HyperV support, …). For security and support reasons we can also understand and accept a limitation to 5 years.

From a customer perspective, Windows 11 EMS & M365 offers the best experience and would be the favored solution. Since we support many, very small customers, the required operation of an Azure Stack HCI cluster per customer is not economically feasible and operable. Here, a release of Azure Stack HCI multi-tenant setup and licensing would be necessary or a Windows 11 EMS release with general HyperV support. Also, the support period of 2.5 years on Win11 EMS is challenging.

The last option of migrating the service to the cloud is currently not technically feasible as there is no centralized management of 20,000+ Azure tenants and all required services.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Deleted That misses the point: Microsoft could simply choose to provide CSP support in anything they want: they make all the Windows versions, including the LTSC versions. I don't think it's that simple anyway, as I'm pretty sure the non-LTSC versions of Server they've released don't have CSP support either.

Deleted That view seems to see it almost exclusively from the provider (software and hardware) side. From the customer side, the binding isn't technical, it's practical: e.g., small businesses running a single cluster for the majority of their workload simply can't upgrade that production system in place. It's far too risky.

-_RH_- "It is unclear to me why multi-user client is significantly different from terminal server, other than licensing. [...]no Intune, CSP (Policies) support.

That's quite easy to answer. It is not only Windows Server that is in question but also all Windows Client LTSC versions. Mind Windows Server is also an LTSC version, while less dominantly named in the product.

This causes constraints, technically, to support products and techniques coming from Azure PGs.

Actively seeing this on the matter how much of work it is to bring winget to Windows Server, while possible, but not yet supported. It is on the roadmap for winget but it is clear that LTSC as a definition and missing dependencies makes it harder to implement.

I personally do not like the clear split of management of WS and Clients aswell. Especially for SMB there are no "server" and seperate "client" teams, opposed to enterprises.

Hi -_RH_- I understand your points. Yet there is no direct binding of hardware support and the 5Y software support cycle. In fact, I am seeing regular updates to older HW products to be certified for newer Windows Server releases by the OEM, so it is quite likely you can use your hardware ideally for at least 2 iterations of Windows Server with full support by Microsoft. Yet, the HW support is often limited to 5 years by our OEM partners and buying in longer terms after the initial 5 years is quite costly. Same as the possible extension by ESU for up to 3 years per Windows Server Product oder other Server Products such as SQL - ESU cost exceptions Azure (Cloud) + Azure Stack HCI (on-premises). 

So if you keep this in mind a 5-year cycle, it could make sense. Agree 5-year cycles can be a burden for large enterprises if you do not favor software designed changes in concepts as infrastructure as a code. And it also causes a lot of old hardware that might not be resold for a second life.

-_RH_- 

the Windows Client OS has always Support for Office 365.

so no need to wait if the pressure from the customers to microsoft is high enough

to get support for the next server Version.

and it is cheeper for the customers then VDI. And esier for us to maintain for us

It is unclear to me why multi-user client is significantly different from terminal server, other than licensing. However, one thing that is sorely lacking in Server is Intune support, and this isn't really answered by Azure Stack HCI, either (Azure Security Center/Defender for Cloud =/= Intune, and it makes little sense to spin up/maintain/skill up on a non-cloud Config Manager for cloud-first orgs). Want to apply Conditional Access Compliance policies for Server? Can't do it. The technical answer I've heard is "CSP support doesn't exist in Server," but that kind of skirts the question, as it's coming from the company that could easily choose to add it.

Elden_Christensen Thank you for asking for feedback here, Elden! Regarding the 5-year support cycle, one reason it's problematic is because by the time the hardware is certified for the new release, procured, shipped, and schedules align for the install, it's often already 18-24 months after the release. For smaller companies on a 5+ year replacement cycle, this puts a system out of support for about half of its life. When they have only one cluster, another challenge is migrating to Azure Stack at all. Realistically, it means new hardware (very difficult and risky to update their one cluster in production), but when the replacement cycle is 5+ years and given the hardware certification/procurement/etc. cycle, this new support uncertainty really puts them in a bind. They just can't afford to keep on the schedule Microsoft has in mind here, and for their use, there is little justification for new hardware otherwise.

I second this. Imagine the possibility to use the new CSP Hosting Programme for hosting AzureStackHCI clusters, as we are used to with VMware solutions.

Few points to clear, like precise billing and security (isolation), RBAC for customers.
Eventually Lighthouse access?

asdasdadqwdq This is the Problem for us, too.

We have many small customer, who would not have that many Compute needs, to fill an Azure Stack HCI Node. So multitanancy would be helpful. 

As far as I know, Citrix is Working on Support for Multi Tenant Windows 10/11 OnPrem. 

With Multi tenant Support for Azure Stack we can switch our Workload from Terminalserver 

to Multi User Client Operating Systems.

That would be a fair compromise for all, I think. And we have no trouble if the Next Server OS gets 

Office 365 Apps

Elden_Christensen 

Even if Azure Stack HCI could be a "useful solution", multitenant is still not possible, right? That is, hosting different AVD instances of different tenants on the identical hardware.

greatquux to be clear this was due to security enhancements.  Some hard decisions had to be made, and keeping customers secure was decided the highest priority with some trade-off's. 

mkelly625It's absolutely true 2019 is slower than 2016 and requires more hardware or splitting up users into more RDSH servers.  And I'm sure 2022 further slows it down. It's incredibly annoying, but how can Microsoft Office developers completely change the whole look of the application every few years for no reason whatsoever except to justify the high costs of subscription software if it's going to be stuck on older versions of Windows?!

Elden_Christensen 

Being part of an organization with a large citrix published app deployment, moving that to Azure stack or AVD makes absolutely no sense as that would increase cost to our organization ten-fold.  Also - We typically use ServerOS versions until year 8 or 9 in their life before moving to the next OS primarily due to the additional hardware required to host the same number of users on the newer Server Operating systems.  Moving from Server 2016 - > 2019 required another 15-20% hardware and the same for 2019 -> 2022.  We're currently running Server 2016 and plan to do so until 2025 or 2026.  I do not believe I am alone in this across the Citrix landscape either, especially when it comes to healthcare customers which we are as well. With all of that being said, I would like to understand the logic of only supporting it through "Mainstream support" vs "extended support".