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Use Partner Center to apply for specializations and check their status

  • Article

Appropriate roles: Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program partner admin

This article describes how to use Partner Center to:

  • Apply for a specialization.
  • Complete the required steps and validations for a specialization, including specializations that require an audit or customer references.
  • Track your progress toward attaining a specialization.

To learn more about the benefits of specializations and the requirements to attain them, see Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program specializations.

Use Partner Center to apply for specializations and track your progress

Much of the process for applying for a specialization is available at Membership > Specializations in Partner Center.

Note

Only users with the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program partner admin user role for their organization's Microsoft partner account have access to the Membership > Specializations section.

Access the specializations area and track your status

To access specializations and track your status, use the following steps:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center as a Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program partner admin and select Membership.
  2. Select Specializations and then select the area you're interested in:
    • Azure
    • Modern work
    • Security
    • Business applications
  3. Requirements differ for each specialization, go through the following list for specific details. To check your performance for each specialization, sign in to Partner Center, and go to the respective specialization page.
AI Platform on Microsoft Azure (formerly known as AI and Machine Learning on Microsoft Azure)

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in any one of two solution areas: Data & AI or Digital & App Innovation

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must complete the following performance requirements:
      • Your organization must show a total of $15,000 of Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) from the eligible Strategic Pillars of Azure AI platform services in the last three months.
      • Eligible strategic pillars: Azure Infra, Azure AI Services, Azure OpenAI AND
      • Your organization must have at least three unique customers contributing to Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) in the last three months from eligible strategic pillars of Azure AI platform services. For more information, see Advanced specializations.

    Eligible strategic pillars: AI Infra, Azure AI Services, Azure OpenAI.

    For example, if a partner gets two customers in the first two months and then adds a new customer in month three, while accumulating an ACR of $15,000 in last three months, they meet the defined requirement. For more information on the services included in the above Eligible strategic pillars, see Azure consumption revenue fields.

    Eligible Association Types: Digital Partner of Record (DPOR), Partner Admin Link (PAL), Cloud Solution Provider (CSP). Government subscriptions (for example, Fairfax) associated by way of PAL aren't valid.

    Note

    Azure AI Studio can't fulfill the ACR requirements but is an eligible piece of evidence when you apply for the audit.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Analytics on Microsoft Azure

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Data & AI solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    Eligible workloads: Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake, Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks

    Eligible association types: DPOR, PAL, CSP

    Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) associated by way of PAL aren't valid.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Build AI Apps on Microsoft Azure (formerly known as Build and Modernize AI Apps with Microsoft Azure)

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in any one of two solution areas: Data & AI or Digital & App Innovation

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must complete the following performance requirements:
      • Your organization must show a total of $15,000 of Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) from the eligible Strategic Pillars of Azure application platform services in the last three months. Eligible Strategic Pillars: App Platform Services, Container and Serverless Services, and Integration Services AND
      • Your organization must show a total of $15,000 of Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) from the eligible Strategic Pillars of Azure data platform services in the last three months. Eligible Strategic Pillars: Cosmos DB, OSS DB, SQL DB AND
      • Your organization must show a total of $15,000 of Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) from the eligible Strategic Pillars of Azure AI platform services in the last three months. Eligible Strategic Pillars: Azure AI Services, Azure OpenAI AND
      • Your organization must have at least three unique customers contributing to Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) in the last three months from eligible Strategic Pillars and eligible association types. Eligible Strategic Pillars: Azure AI Services, Azure OpenAI, Cosmos DB, OSS DB, SQL DB, App Platform Services, Container and Serverless Services, Integration Services

    For example, if a partner gets two customers in the first two months and then adds a new customer in month three while accumulating an ACR of $15,000 (in application platform, data platform, and AI platform services each) in the last three months, they meet the defined requirement.

    For more information on the services included in the eligible Strategic Pillars, see Azure consumption revenue fields.

    Eligible Association Types: Digital Partner of Record (DPOR), Partner Admin Link (PAL), Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)

    Note

    Azure AI Studio can't fulfill the ACR requirements but is an eligible piece of evidence when you apply for the audit.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Data Warehouse Migration to Microsoft Azure

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Data & AI solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    Eligible workloads: Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks

    Eligible association types: DPOR, PAL, CSP

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Accelerate Developer Productivity with Microsoft Azure

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Digital & App Innovation solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show a total of $30,000 of ACR* from at least three customers from the previous three months, or
    • Your organization must have at least two MSX engagements** with engagement workload as Apps: DevOps (GitHub, Azure DevOps, other) in a trailing 12-month (TTM) period.

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP. Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL association.

    ** Engagement status should commit or higher. Leads aren't counted towards this requirement.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure Stack HCI

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in any one of three solution areas: Data & AI, Digital & App Innovation, or Infrastructure

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show a total of $1,500 of ACR* from Azure Stack HCI from at least two customers from the previous three months.
    • Azure Stack HCI ACR is determined through Service Level 2 as Azure Stack HCI.

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP. Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL association.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Infra and Database Migration to Microsoft Azure

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in any one of two solution areas: Data & AI or Infrastructure

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show customers migrating to Azure.
    • Your organization must show a total of at least $30,000 USD Windows Server Virtual Machine (VM) ACR* in the previous three months from at least three customers (aggregated from across your customers)
    • Your organization must also show a total of at least $15,000 USD Linux Virtual Machines (VM) ACR* in the previous three months from at least three customers (aggregated from across your customers)
    • Your organization must show a total of $9,000 USD from SQL Managed Instance (MI), SQL Database (DB), and SQL VM ACR* in the previous three months from at least three customers (aggregated from across your customers). At least $3,000 USD of that total must be from SQL MI or SQL DB
    • Your organization must also show a total of $4,500 ACR* in the previous three months from at least three customers (aggregated from across your customers) from any, or a combination of, these databases:
      • Azure Database (DB) for MariaDB
      • Azure DB for MySQL
      • Azure DB for PostgreSQL
      • Azure Cosmos DB

    Infra and Database Migration to Microsoft Azure is determined through list. For more information, see the Azure Consumption Revenue filters for specialization section.

    You can have the same three customers meeting the requirement for Infrastructure and Database Migration to Azure or they could be different.

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in any one of two solution areas: Data & AI or Digital & App Innovation

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show a total of $15,000 from Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) or Azure RedHat OpenShift ACR* in the previous three months from at least three customers (aggregated from across your customers).
    • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) ACR is determined through Service Influencer as AKS, AKS-Engine. Azure RedHat OpenShift ACR is determined through Service Group 3 as ARO, Service Level 2 as All except Unknown. For more information, see the Azure Consumption Revenue filters for specialization section.

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Infrastructure solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show an average of at least $7,500 of Azure Virtual Desktop ACR in the previous three months from at least three customers (aggregated from across your customers).
    • Azure Virtual Desktop ACR is determined through Service Influencer as NATIVE WVD.
    • Your organization should achieve ACR through DPOR, PAL, and CSP. Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL

  • Skilling requirements:

    You can have a combination of the same individuals or different individuals to meet the certification requirement.

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Microsoft Azure VMware Solution

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Infrastructure solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show a total of $30,000 of ACR* from Azure VMware Solutions (AVS) from at least one customer from the previous three months.
    • Azure VMware Solutions (AVS) is determined through Service Level 4 - Azure VMware Solution, Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple, Azure VMware Solution by Virtustream, Specialized Compute Azure VMware Solution

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP. Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL association.

  • Skilling requirements:

    You can have a combination of the same individuals or different individuals to meet the certification requirement and technical assessment.

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Migrate Enterprise Apps to Microsoft Azure

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in any one of two solution areas: Data & AI or Digital & App Innovation

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show a total of $5,000 from Azure AppService or Azure Spring Cloud ACR* in the previous three months from at least three customers (aggregated from across your customers).

    Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL association.

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP. Learn more about Azure ACR.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Networking Services in Microsoft Azure

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Infrastructure solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show a total of $30,000 of ACR* from Networking from at least three customers from the previous three months.

    Networking ACR is determined through Service Group 2 as Networking.

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP. Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL association.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: Your company must have at least one managed service or consulting service offer under the Networking category published on Azure Marketplace.

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

SAP on Microsoft Azure

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Infrastructure solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must show a total of $30,000 of ACR* (aggregated from all Azure workloads) from the last three months, aggregated from at least three customers.

    Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL association.

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP. Learn more about Azure ACR.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Audit required

Adoption and Change Management

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Modern Work solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must have a minimum of three customer tenants with 40% usage on SharePoint, Teams, and/or VivaEngage in a TTM period.
    • Your company must achieve a minimum of 10,000 Monthly Active User (MAU) growth within SharePoint, Teams, and/or VivaEngage in a TTM period.

    MAU is calculated on a rolling 28-day basis and represents the unique number of users taking an intentional action on a specific service.

    Your company should achieve MAU through Claiming Partner of Record (CPOR).

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Calling for Microsoft Teams

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Modern Work solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must achieve a minimum growth of 1,000 Teams Phone enabled users in a TTM period.

    Enabled users: Users with a Teams Phone license and a telephone number assigned to them (using either a first-party calling plan or third-party calling plan) so that they're able to make and receive PSTN calls. Partners should use the TeamsPhoneEnabledUsers workload (previously referred to as TeamsPhoneSystem) to claim and track their contribution.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Custom Solutions for Microsoft Teams

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Modern Work solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must achieve a minimum of 1,000 Microsoft Teams Apps MAU growth in TTM period (CPOR data).
    • Teams Apps MAU is apps/solutions that are developed by partners using pro dev tools, Power Platform, or MS-provided templates, integrated through embedding, extension, or a Graph API calls (Teams Apps) (Coming soon Teams Apps with/or Teams App ID)

    MAU is calculated on a rolling 28-day basis and represents the unique number of users taking an intentional action on a specific service. Your company should achieve MAU through CPOR.

  • Skilling requirements:

    • Four or more individuals from your organization must pass the Microsoft 365 Certified: Developer Associate certification.
      • This certification requires a private access code, and the code depends on where you're taking the exam.
        • In-person exam in a test center: MS600TC_Hike
        • Online exam: MS600OP_Summer

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Meetings and Meeting Rooms for Microsoft Teams

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Modern Work solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must achieve a minimum of 5,000 MAU growth of Microsoft Teams Meetings in a TTM period.

    MAU is calculated on a rolling 28-day basis and represents the unique number of users taking an intentional action on a specific service. Your company should achieve MAU through CPOR.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Modernize Endpoints

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Modern Work solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must achieve a minimum of 5,000 MAU growth of Microsoft Intune in a TTM period.

    MAU is calculated on a rolling 28-day basis and represents the unique number of users taking an intentional action on a specific service. Your company should achieve MAU through CPOR.

  • Skilling requirements:

    You can have a combination of the same individuals or different individuals meet the exam requirements.

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Teamwork Deployment

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Modern Work solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must ensure that three out of four eligible Teamwork services show a minimum growth of 2,500 MAU each over the last 12 months.
    • Maintain a 20% average of MAU for customers associated to your company in three out of four eligible Teamwork services in a TTM period.
    • Associate a minimum of 12 new customer tenants with your company for one of the eligible Teamwork services in a TTM period.

    Eligible Teamwork services: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, VivaEngage

    MAU is calculated on a rolling 28-day basis and represents the unique number of users taking an intentional action on a specific service. Your company should achieve MAU through CPOR.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Cloud Security

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Security solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must demonstrate $200,000 of ACR* from Hybrid Environment XDR and Network Security in a TTM period.

    Hybrid Environment XDR and Network Security ACR are determined through the Service Level 4 list.

    * ACR can be achieved through DPOR, PAL, and CSP. Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL association.

  • Skilling requirements:

    You can have a combination of the same individuals or different individuals to meet the certification requirement.

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Identity and Access Management

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Security solution area

  • Performance requirements:

    • Your organization must achieve a minimum of 2,000 MAU growth of Microsoft Entra ID in a TTM period.

    MAU is calculated on a rolling 28-day basis and represents the unique number of users taking an intentional action on a specific service. Your company should achieve MAU through CPOR.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Information Protection and Governance

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Security solution area

  • Performance:

    • Your organization must achieve a minimum of 1,000 MAU growth of Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MIP) in a TTM period.

    MAU is calculated on a rolling 28-day basis and represents the unique number of users taking an intentional action on a specific service. Your company should achieve MAU through CPOR.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Threat Protection

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Security solution area

  • Performance:

    • Your company must achieve a minimum of 1,000 MAU growth of Microsoft Defender for Identity or Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDCA) in a TTM period. or
    • Your company must demonstrate $100,000 ACR from Microsoft Sentinel in a TTM period.

    MAU is calculated on a rolling 28-day basis and represents the unique number of users taking an intentional action on a specific service. Your company should achieve MAU through CPOR.

    Your organization should achieve the Azure consumption revenue through DPOR association to a customer, or as the CSP direct-bill partner or CSP indirect reseller for a customer or by using the PAL. Offer types Trial, Benefits programs, Support, and Internal are excluded. Government subscriptions (such as Fairfax) aren't eligible for ACR via PAL association.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource: N/A

  • Audit or customer references: Customer references required

Microsoft Low Code Application Development

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in any one of three solution areas: Digital & App Innovation, Business Applications, or Modern Work

  • Performance:

    • Your organization must have at least five unique customers as new deployments, each with at least one application deployed in that customer’s production environment. The customer’s production application must meet the following criteria within the TTM:
      • A production Power App is an app in a production environment with at least five users.
      • The app must be built on paid eligible SKUs: Power Apps per User or Power Apps per App or Portals.
      • Each app must have the Partner user listed as the Owner or Coowner of the application and have the same user associated to your Partner Center account through PAL. Learn more about lining a partner ID to your Power Apps accounts
    • Your company must achieve growth in MAU of at least 35% across your customer base in the TTM. To be eligible for the growth calculation, your customer base must have at least 50 MAU at the start of the TTM.

    Growth in MAU calculates across all PAL associated applications in your customer base. At the application level, only paid subscriptions under the customer’s tenant qualifies. *You must have Partner Admin Link (PAL) associated to your Partner Center account to attain this specialization. You must perform this association for all your customer deployments. *PAL calculates all requirements listed in the previous performance section.

  • Skilling requirements:

    You can have a combination of the same individuals or different individuals to meet the certification requirement.

  • AppSource:

  • Audit or customer references: N/A

Business Intelligence

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in any one of two solution areas: Data & AI or Business Applications

  • Performance:

    • Your organization must have at least five (5) unique Power BI customers as new deployments, each with at least one Enterprise Power BI project deployed in that customer’s production environment and meet the following criteria within the TTM:

      • An Enterprise Power BI project is defined as a project deployed in a customer production environment with at least one dataset and at least 100 monthly active users (MAU) in the prior 28 days
      • The project must be built on paid eligible SKUs: Power BI Pro, Power BI Premium per User or capacity, or Microsoft 365 E5. Learn more about Power BI pricing.
      • Each project must have the partner user listed as the owner or co-owner of the project and have the same user be associated to your Partner Center account through PAL. Learn more about linking a Partner ID to your Power BI accounts.
      • Your organization must achieve growth in Power BI MAU of at least 25% across your customer base in the TTM. To be eligible for the growth calculation, your customer base must have at least 1,000 MAU at the start of the TTM.

      Growth in MAU is calculated across all PAL-associated projects in your customer base over the past 12 months. MAU is counted at the production tenant level and summed up across only the paid licenses under the tenant. MAU is calculated at the end of every month.

      At the project level, only paid subscriptions under the customer’s tenant qualifies.

      *Eligible Association Types: PAL

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource:

  • Audit or customer references: N/A

Finance
Intelligent Automation
Sales
Service
Small and Midsize Business Management

  • Eligibility: Active Solutions Partner designation in the Business Applications solution area

  • Performance:

    • Your company must have at least 10 new Business Central deployments with five or more monthly active users in the TTM.
    • Your company must have the deployments with a monthly active user growth of at least 35% in the TTM. Your company must have a baseline of at least 50 monthly active users across their entire customer base 12 months ago.

    *Eligible Association Types: DPOR, CPOR OSU, PAL, CSP

    Monthly active users are counted at the production tenant level and summed up across only the paid subscriptions under the tenant.

    Partners are associated to tenants at the subscription level and are mapped to the Dynamics 365 Business Central product. All partners associated to any paid subscription under a tenant gets credit for all the monthly active users summed up across all paid subscriptions under that tenant.

  • Skilling requirements:

  • AppSource:

  • Audit or customer references: N/A

Supply Chain

Complete an audit or include customer references

To earn a specialization, you must earn an aligned Solutions Partner designation and fulfill other prerequisites unique to that specialization.

To earn some specializations, you must also:

Both tasks can be performed in Partner Center.

Specializations that don't require an audit or customer references

Specializations that don't require an audit or customer reference include:

  • Microsoft Low Code Application Development
  • Small and Midsize Business Management
  • Sales
  • Service
  • Finance
  • Supply Chain
  • Intelligent Automation
  • Business Intelligence

Specializations that require an audit with a third-party auditor

Specializations that require an audit from a third-party auditor include:

  • Analytics on Microsoft Azure
  • Build AI Apps on Microsoft Azure (formerly known as Build and Modernize AI Apps with Microsoft Azure)
  • Data Warehouse Migration to Microsoft Azure
  • Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure
  • Infra and Database migration to Microsoft Azure
  • Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop
  • Migrate Enterprise Applications to Microsoft Azure
  • AI Platform on Microsoft Azure (formerly known as AI and Machine Learning on Microsoft Azure)
  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure Stack HCI
  • Microsoft Azure VMware Solution
  • Accelerate Developer Productivity with Microsoft Azure (formerly known as DevOps with GitHub on Microsoft Azure)
  • Networking Services in Microsoft Azure
  • SAP on Microsoft Azure

Complete an audit with a third-party auditor

In addition to fulfilling a specialization's prerequisites, you must pass a scheduled audit to earn some specializations.

To schedule an audit, follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center as a Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program partner admin and select Membership.
  2. Select Specializations, and then select Azure.
  3. Select the name of a specialization, for example, Modernization of Web Applications to Microsoft Azure.
    • The prerequisites for the specialization appear.
  4. Select Schedule audit.
    • The Schedule audit button isn't available, and your status is Not started until you meet all the prerequisites on the page.
    • After you meet all the prerequisites and complete the audit, your status changes to Active.

Specializations that require customer references

In addition to fulfilling prerequisites, you must also provide customer references to earn some specializations.

Specializations that require customer references include:

  • Adoption and Change Management
  • Calling for Microsoft Teams
  • Custom Solutions for Microsoft Teams
  • Meetings and Meeting Rooms for Microsoft Teams
  • Modernize Endpoints
  • Teamwork Deployment
  • Identity and Access Management
  • Threat Protection
  • Information Protection and Governance
  • Cloud Security

Provide customer references

To provide customer references in Partner Center, follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center as a Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program partner admin and select Membership.
  2. Select Specializations, and then select an area you're interested in:
    • Modern work
    • Security
  3. Select the name of the specialization.
    • The prerequisites for the specialization appear. As an example, for the Meetings and Meeting Rooms for Microsoft Teams specialization, in addition to a Solutions Partner designation, certifications, and a performance requirement, you must also provide three customer references that demonstrate your ability to deploy and manage.
      • Until you meet all the prerequisites and provide customer references, your status is Not Started.
      • After you meet all the prerequisites and provide the required references, your status changes to Active.

How Azure consumption revenue is calculated for each specialization

Partner-to-customer associations include:

  • DPOR association with a customer
  • CSP direct-bill partner or CSP indirect reseller for a customer
  • PAL association with a customer

Not counted toward the specialization is Azure consumption revenue (ACR) from subscriptions to the following types of offers:

  • Trial
  • Benefits programs
  • Support
  • Internal

Azure consumption revenue fields

Field name Field description
Service Level 1 Highest level at which Azure services are bundled. See Directory of Azure Cloud service.
Service Level 2 Second-highest level Azure Services based, for example Pricing overview - How Azure pricing works
Service Level 3 Third-highest level Azure Services based, for example Pricing - Linux virtual machines
Service Level 4 Fourth-highest level Azure Services based, for example Pricing - Linux virtual machines
Super StrategicPillar (also called Service Group 2) Grouping of Azure services according to a service subcategory
StrategicPillar Grouping of Azure services according to a Service category
SubStrategicPillar (also called Service Group 3) Grouping of Azure services according to a service subcategory
Service Influencer Grouping of Azure services mapped to a specific consumption activity
Compute OS Compute Operating System
Compute Core Software Compute Core Software

Azure consumption revenue filters for specialization

  • AI Platform on Microsoft Azure (formerly known as AI and Machine Learning on Microsoft Azure)
    • Here are the Strategic Pillars and their corresponding Sub Strategic Pillar workloads:
      • AI Infra - Azure Machine Learning, MaaS, Other AI Infra
      • Azure AI Services - Anomaly Detector, Bot Service, Content Moderator, Content Safety, Document Intelligence, Health Bot, Health Insights, Immersive Reader, Language, Metrics Advisor, Personalizer, Phi, Search, Speech, Translator, Video Analyzer, Video Indexer, Vision
      • Azure OpenAI - Azure OpenAI
  • Analytics on Microsoft Azure
    • Azure Synapse Analytics ACR: Service Level 2 = Azure Synapse Analytics
    • Data Lake ACR: Service Group 3 = Azure Data Lake
    • Databricks ACR: Service Group3 = Databricks
    • Azure Data Factory ACR: Service Level 2 = Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Factory v2
    • Microsoft Fabric ACR: Service Level 2 = Microsoft Fabric
  • Build AI Apps on Microsoft Azure (formerly known as Build and Modernize AI Apps with Microsoft Azure)
    • Here are the Strategic Pillars and their corresponding Sub Strategic Pillar workloads:
      • Azure AI Services - Anomaly Detector, Bot Service, Content Moderator, Content Safety, Document Intelligence, Health Bot, Health Insights, Immersive Reader, Language, Metrics Advisor, Personalizer, Phi, Search, Speech, Translator, Video Analyzer, Video Indexer, Vision
      • Azure OpenAI - Azure OpenAI
      • Cosmos DB - Cosmos DB
      • OSS DB - MariaDB, MySQL, PGSQL
      • SQL DB - SQL DB, SQL DB MI
      • App Platform Services - Azure App Service, Azure Spring Cloud
      • Container and Serverless Services - AKS, ARO, Azure Container Apps, Container Instances, Container Registry, Functions
      • Integration Services - API Management, Event Grid, Logic Apps, Service Bus
  • Data Warehouse Migration to Microsoft Azure
    • Azure Synapse Analytics ACR: Service Level 2 = Azure Synapse Analytics
    • Azure Databricks ACR: Service Group 3 = Azure Databricks
    • Microsoft Fabric ACR: Service Level 2 = Microsoft Fabric
  • Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure Stack HCI
    • Azure Stack HCI ACR: Service Level 2 = Azure Stack HCI
  • Infra and Database migration to Microsoft Azure
    • Windows ACR:
      • ACR Adjustment Type = N/A, Compute Core SW = Core,
      • Compute OS = WINDOWS THEN Compute OS Attribute = WINDOWS, UNKNOWN, or Compute OS = LINUX THEN Compute OS Attribute = WINDOWS-AHUB
        • Service Level 2= Cloud Services, Container Instances, Container Registry, Specialized Compute, Virtual Machines, Virtual Machines Licenses
      • SQL Database (DB) ACR: Service Group 3 = SQLDB
      • SQL Managed Instance (MI) ACR: Service Group 3 = SQL DB MI
      • SQL VM ACR: Service Group 3 = SQL on IaaS, SQL on IaaS VM
    • Linux Virtual Machines (VM)ACR:
      • Option 1:
        • ACR Adjustment Type= N/A, Service Level 2 = Virtual Machines, Compute OS= Linux, Compute OS Attribute = Non-Windows, UNKNOWN, Windows
        • Service Level 4 = All EXCEPT Cloud Services MS Series, Virtual Machines MS Series, Virtual Machines MS Series Windows, Virtual Machines MSv2 Series, Virtual Machines MSv2 Series Windows, MS Series Dedicated Host, MSv2 Series Dedicated Host
      • Option 2: only require filters on Service Level 4, other fields like Compute OS/Compute OS Attributes aren't required
        • Service Level 4 = Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux with HA, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Basic, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for HPC Priority, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for HPC Standard, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Priority, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Standard
    • Azure Database (DB) for MariaDB ACR: Service Level 1 = Databases and Service Level 2 = Azure Database for MariaDB
    • Azure DB for MySql ACR: Service Level 1 = Databases and Service Level 2 = Azure Database for MySQL and MySQL Database on Azure
    • Azure DB for PostgreSQL ACR: Service Level 1 = Databases and Service Level 2 = Azure Database for PostgreSQL
    • Azure COSMOS DB ACR: Service Level 1 = Databases Level 2 = Azure Cosmos DB
  • Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure
    • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) ACR: Service Influencer = AKS, AKS-Engine
    • Azure RedHat OpenShift ACR: Service Group 3 = ARO, Service Level 2 = All except "Unknown"
  • Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop
    • Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop ACR: Service Influencer = NATIVE WVD
  • Microsoft Azure VMware Solution
    • Azure VMware Solutions (AVS) ACR: Service Level 4 in any of the following:
      • Azure VMware Solution
      • Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple
      • Azure VMware Solution by Virtustream
      • Specialized Compute Azure VMware Solution
  • Migrate Enterprise Apps to Microsoft Azure
    • pp Service ACR:
      • Service Level 1 = Compute
      • Service Level 2 = Azure App Service
    • Azure Spring Cloud ACR:
      • ACR Adjustment Type = N/A
      • Service Group 2 = Digital and App Innovation
      • Service Group 3 = Azure Spring Cloud
      • Service Level 2 = All except "Unknown"
  • SAP on Microsoft Azure
    • SAP Workloads ACR: Service Level 4 in any of the following:
      • Cloud Services MS Series
      • Virtual Machines MS Series
      • Virtual Machines MS Series Windows
      • Virtual Machines MSv2 Series
      • Virtual Machines MSv2 Series Windows
      • MS Series Dedicated Host
      • MSv2 Series Dedicated Host
      • SAP HANA on Azure Large Instances
      • SAP Cloud Platform Alert Notification
      • SAP Cloud Platform Extension Factory - Kyma Runtime
      • SAP Cloud Platform Integration Suite - Additional Messages
      • SAP Cloud Platform Integration Suite - Standard Edition
      • SAP Cloud Platform Transport Management
      • SAP Edge Services
      • SAP Embrace API Management
      • SAP Embrace Application Logging
      • SAP Embrace Application Runtime
      • SAP Embrace Bandwidth
      • SAP Embrace Business Application Studio
      • SAP Embrace Business Rules
      • SAP Embrace Cloud Integration
      • SAP Embrace Credential Store
      • SAP Embrace Custom Domain
      • SAP Embrace Data Intelligence
      • SAP Embrace Enterprise Messaging
      • SAP Embrace Extension Factory
      • SAP Embrace HANA Cloud
      • SAP Embrace Identity Authentication
      • SAP Embrace Job Scheduler
      • SAP Embrace MACC
      • SAP Embrace Mobile Services
      • SAP Embrace Object Store Service
      • SAP Embrace Open Connectors
      • SAP Embrace Portal
      • SAP Embrace Process Visibility
      • SAP Embrace Web Analytics
      • SAP Embrace Workflow
      • SAP HANA Service
      • SAP Web IDE
  • Cloud Security
    • Hybrid Environment XDR
    • Network Security ACR: Service Level 4 in any of the following:
      • Azure Defender for SQL
      • Azure Defender for container registries
      • Azure Defender for Kubernetes
      • Azure Defender for Storage
      • Application Gateway WAF v2
      • WAF Application Gateway
      • Azure Active Directory B2C
      • Microsoft Entra Directory Domain Services
      • Microsoft Entra External ID
      • Azure Bastion
      • Azure DDOS Protection
      • Azure Firewall
      • Azure Firewall Manager
      • Azure Front Door Service
      • Azure Defender for IoT
      • Azure Dedicated HSM
      • Key Vault
      • Network Watcher
      • Azure Defender for App Service
      • Azure Defender for servers
      • Sentinel
  • Threat Protection
    • Microsoft Sentinel ACR: Service Level 4 = Sentinel

Data freshness

Performance is typically refreshed by the 20th of every month. However, there might be more minor data refreshes throughout the month.

Skilling subcategories are typically refreshed within 10 days after certification is complete.

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