Multi-Geo reduced seat minimum and expanded geo coverage

[John_Mighell]

We are excited to announce the availability of Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo in Switzerland, and the reduction of the seat minimum requirement to 250 for Enterprise Agreement customers. These updates will allow more organizations to utilize Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo to address their legal, compliance, industry, or other related data residency requirements.

Please note that this product was previously referred to as ‘Multi-Geo Capabilities for Office 365,’ and will now be named ‘Multi-Geo Capabilities for Microsoft 365,’ consistent with the overall Microsoft 365 announcement on March 30. We previously announced the general availability of Multi-Geo Capabilities, in addition to the workload expansion from Exchange Online and OneDrive to include SharePoint Online.

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo provides a solution for multi-national businesses seeking a balance between working as a single organization in the Microsoft 365 cloud and addressing global data residency needs. With the reduced seat minimum requirement and coverage across Exchange Online, OneDrive, and SharePoint Online this feature helps bring the full power of Microsoft 365 – the world’s productivity cloud – to organizations at any stage in their digital transformation journey.

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo enables customers to reduce their on-premises footprint by allocating user data at rest to our available geo locations in the Microsoft 365 cloud, facilitating their ability to meet data residency obligations, all within a single tenant. For in-depth information on how Multi-Geo capabilities work and how to get started, please review the links above.

Available Geos

Microsoft is continuously making new infrastructure investments in response to growing customer demand as more industry leaders choose Microsoft’s cloud services. As a result, Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is increasing our geo coverage as we expand our datacenter footprint for Microsoft 365. With the latest addition of Switzerland, you can now extend your Microsoft 365 tenant to store your users’ data in one or more of the following geos:

Australia	Asia Pacific
Canada	European Union
France	India
Japan	Korea
United Kingdom	United States
United Arab Emirates	South Africa
Switzerland

Learn about where your Microsoft 365 data is stored at aka.ms/DataMaps

Industry Focus

We see worldwide organizations of all sizes and across all industries currently investing in new ways of empowering their employees with modern tools to enable secure, flexible, and mobile working that fosters collaboration. The ability to configure data residency on a by-user basis helps organizations meet regulatory requirements, which is particularly important and relevant in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, public sector, and financial services. This latest step enables companies adopting Microsoft 365 to accelerate their digital transformation journey. As a result, we see Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo assisting organizations across the world to enable the scalability required to address critical challenges affecting the global community.

“We now have as many people outside the US as in it, and although the GDPR doesn’t mandate a particular Geo for data residency, our clients are hypersensitive about data privacy issues, so we prefer to get in front of it,” Ackermann says. “Our lifeblood includes data which is personal information about people and with Multi-Geo, we’re able to proactively address client concerns about data residency.” -       Bryan Ackermann, Chief Information Officer, Korn Ferry

Pricing and Licensing:

Multi-Geo is available as an add-on to the following Microsoft 365 subscription plans for EA customers with a minimum of 250 Microsoft 365 seats in their Microsoft 365 tenant, and a minimum of 5% of the Microsoft 365 seats within a tenant have corresponding Multi-Geo Capabilities for Microsoft 365. Please contact your Microsoft account team for details.

Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, or E5

Office 365 F3, E1, E3, or E5

Exchange Online Plan 1 or Plan 2

OneDrive for Business Plan 1 or Plan 2

SharePoint Online Plan 1 or Plan 2

Licensing

• USD $2/user/month for users in Satellite Geos
• Resource mailboxes (Rooms/Equipment) and Shared mailboxes need to be licensed
• Microsoft 365 Group Mailboxes moved to Satellite Geos will not need to be licensed for Multi-Geo

How to buy Multi-Geo?

Please talk to your Microsoft representative to buy Multi-Geo Capabilities for Microsoft 365.

Questions?

Please comment on this thread with your questions

[Michiel Hamers]

The image suggest that Brazil is a option as a satalite location for multi geo. However that is currently not. :(

[John_Mighell]

@Michiel Hamers thank you for the catch - I've updated the graphic 

[BenFMarshall]

This is Great News! So to align with the 250 user Minimum requirement, does anyone know when this feature will be available through CSP?  We have several clients that need this feature that cannot get an EA due to the 500 user minimum requirement. 

Thank you!

[John_Mighell]

Hi Ben, I currently do not have a concrete timeline to share on Multi-Geo availability through CSP, but it is on our internal roadmap and we are pushing with our commerce teams to enable as quickly as possible.

[F-Imam]

This not being available to CSP, has literally cost us 3 clients and we lost them to G-Suite! Seriously, this needs to be made available to CSP at the earliest.

[Slyclouduser]

Is Multi-Geo availability through CSP? 

[John_Mighell]

Thank you F-Imam and Slyclouduser for the comments. Multi-Geo is not currently availably through CSP, but we working with our commerce teams to enable that functionality. Your comments are helpful to highlight the need for Multi-Geo through CSP. 

[BenFMarshall]

@John_Mighell When I first commented on this feature, I knew that it would become a requirement that I would need in the future. That day has come and its a very large deal that we have invested months of work on for multiple resources.  I need to know if this feature will be available for CSP in the next 9 months. This is very important. 

[Pontus T]

I appreciate that this is finally moving in the right direction. We have been waiting on this limit for 3 years, so I was happy to see the news. However, I just found out from our vendor that this change is useless as we still need 500 E licenses to get the EA in the first place. They could not even tell me why this change was announced. I probably miss something, but how can a customer be EA whilst only having 250 licenses? We have been told this is not possible as we need a combination of minimum 500 x M/O365 E 1/3/5 to qualify for EA? To me this change has no effect unless the EA limit is also lowered to 250.

We have about 270 licenses today, some double licensed cross tenants, but are over 700 globally (mostly on-prem). As a result, we have a hard time accepting the the cost of buying 500 licenses up front for projects that will take a minimum of 12 months to bring all users on board.

[John_Mighell]

Hi Pontus T, thanks for sharing your perspective. Once we have multi-geo available through CSP many of these issues will be resolved. Regarding your other point - the minimum EA license requirement was changed from 250 to 500 on July 1, 2016. However, there are still some customers who have agreements that pre-date that change. This update is designed to accommodate those customers, who have between 250-499 EA licenses. 

[gw_ap320]

Hi, @John_Mighell , could you help to advise how ISVs can get multi-geo enabled so that they can support this feature in their products? Thanks!

[John_Mighell]

Hi @gw_ap320 , you can purchase Multi-Geo if you have an EA and meet the requirements. We are currently looking into trial licenses and other options for partners to gain experience with the product. 

[Patrick_Hoogenboom]

Hi @John_Mighell, any news on the Multi-Geo availability through CSP?

[Adrian_Fleisch_LID]

Hi @John_Mighell , any news on the Multi-Geo availability through CSP? On the Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo - Microsoft 365 Enterprise | Microsoft Docs is still written: "Multi-Geo feature is available to EA customers with a minimum of 250 Microsoft 365 subscriptions."

[Shanarchi]

Just to add to the above, reducing the limit for Multi Geo to 250 just further proves that this is a solution for Midsize aswell as Enterprise customers and the product offering should be included under CSP. Whilst it’s great to support existing EA customers, doesn’t this just send mixed messages to channel?
Not to mention enabling CSP/MSP resellers to service these customers from end to end gives the customer greater choice and better value.
A customer with 250 seats would certainly receive a more proactive service under the CSP channel over LSP.

[MartinD_CZ]

Hi @John_Mighell , recently, there has been one year anniversary of your statement: "we working with our commerce teams to enable that functionality [Multi-Geo availability through CSP]".

Could you please anwer the questions:

1. When should Multi-Geo be avalilable through CSP?

   .....If Microsoft does not know that or if it will be later than in 2021:

2. when will EA and Multi Geo be avaliable for customers with less than 100 users?

Regards, Martin

[KrisZ987]

Is there any more news regarding the inclusion of O365 Multi-Geo with CSP? This is literally the only hurdle our company has right now stopping us from completing a migration into the cloud. Microsoft's assumption that small and medium sized multi-nationals simply don't exist, is extremely narrow minded.

Its obvious that Microsoft wants companies shifted from EA to CSP when they increased the minimum user license limit to 500 in 2016. And yet basic functionality such as Multi-Geo is still missing from CSP. Functionality that is available from Microsoft's competitors.

[MartinD_CZ]

Hi KrisZ987. No, no one from Microsoft has answered to any question regarding Multi-Geo in CSP. They are answering to anything else but never to this. We have tried more channels and ... nothing.

A shift from (3-year) EA to (1-year) CSP can be the first step to shift to "other Multi-Geo" = could you please recommend some Microsoft's competitors with working Multi-Geo?

[Lori Craw]

We are aware of the desire to bring multi-geo to CSP, as well as the frustration around its lack of availability. We continue to work with our commerce teams to enable multi-geo in CSP. At this time we do not have a firm timeline to share.