SharePoint Server Subscription Commercial Edition – Redmondmag.com

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SharePoint Server subscription edition released

Microsoft announced Tuesday that its SharePoint Server Subscription Edition product for deployment in customer environments is now in the retail release stage of “general availability.”

The product, designed to be deployed on customer infrastructure, was previously in the preview stage in July. Customers install the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition bits on their own server hardware, but Microsoft leases it through a subscription.

Details about the subscription, its costs and its support model were not mentioned in the announcement and appear to be unavailable. Microsoft’s general documents on SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, however, are posted here.

Subscription application servers
This release of the product marks a new phase in the way Microsoft licenses its application servers. Current SharePoint Server users can only purchase the latest SharePoint Server products by subscription now. There is no “SharePoint Server 2022” product as you might expect.

In addition, the upcoming Exchange Server, Skype for Business Server, and Project Server products (not yet announced) are also intended to be sold by subscription. Microsoft had described this move from its new application server products to a subscription model last year in October.

It is possible to upgrade from SharePoint Server 2019 or SharePoint Server 2016 to SharePoint Server Subscription Edition.

Features of SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
Some new features are highlighted by Microsoft for the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition product. It gets Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 encryption for traffic by default, or at least TLS 1.2, but organizations will need to use Windows Server 2022 with the product to achieve these security protections.

Microsoft recommends using Windows Server 2022, as a minimum, with this product.

“Microsoft recommends deploying SharePoint Server Subscription Edition with Windows Server 2022 or later,” this Microsoft Features document states. Windows Server Server Core and Desktop implementations will work with SharePoint Server Subscription Edition.

The OpenID Connect (OIDC) 1.0 authentication protocol is supported in SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. It makes it easier to enforce policies on clients before access, such as requiring multi-factor authentication and setting conditional access prerequisites. OIDC 1.0 support enables “authentication with identity providers, such as Azure Active Directory (AAD), Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2016 or higher, and third-party identity providers that implement the OIDC 1.0 protocol, ”Microsoft explained in the Features document.

Microsoft has added a new remote BLOB storage provider for use with SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. It allows organizations to offload SQL Server BLOB storage to “low-cost remote Server Message Block (SMB) systems,” the features document explains.

When SharePoint Server Subscription Edition is installed, it will lack SQL Server Express. Microsoft has suggested in this “setup” document that SQL Server be installed on a separate server “for better performance”.

SharePoint Ignite enhancements
Microsoft also released a bunch of SharePoint and Microsoft 365 products announcements this week associated with its Ignite online event. It consists of both large and small features from Microsoft’s product roadmap listings.

This ad did not mention the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition product, but described the latest OneDrive, Microsoft Lists, Office.com, and Microsoft Teams features to arrive or to come.

This announcement included some details from the SharePoint admin center, namely:

• Ability to rename a SharePoint Online tenant URL name (preview).
• OneDrive sync reports now support Mac devices.
• IT professionals can manage teams and team sites connected to channels.
• Migration Manager now has a file scan for Box cloud storage moves.
• SharePoint Server workflows can be migrated directly to Power Automate.

On the security side, sensitivity labels become “more granular” at the preview stage. It is possible to use a tag that requires multi-factor authentication, for example. Microsoft is also previewing new “Data Access Governance Rights” to monitor sharing activity.

Overall, SharePoint users get faster upload (5x) and upload (10x) speeds, Microsoft said, presumably referring to the SharePoint Online service. SharePoint Online stores 100 petabytes of data per month. Microsoft has more than 200 data centers in 34 countries for its SharePoint Online service.