Help Lead Your Customers to the Cloud with MPN Advisory Hours: Sample Scenarios

One of the most valuable resources you may have access to as part of your MPN benefits is:

 Advisory Hours   

This is one of the core benefits of being a MPN partner, and often times a underutilized benefit.   Partner advisory hours are the currency used to access certain key services offered to Microsoft Partner Network members. Use your hours to help build your cloud and hybrid cloud skill set with training powered by Microsoft Partner Technical Services, or get customized guidance for competing, developing, or deploying solutions for your customers.  You can learn more about advisory hours here: Partner Advisory Hours 

Sounds great so how do you get advisory hours, there a few ways to get advisory hours:

• Microsoft Action Pack (MAPS) --- Gives you 5 advisory hours to leverage.
• MPN Cloud Performance competencies: --- Based on your competency level you can get up to 50 advisory hours! 
• Purchase Extra Advisory Hours.

With Partner advisory hours you have access to Partner Technical Consultants (PTC) who are available to assist North American partners via virtual delivery.  PTC’s have level 300-400 expertise in various solution areas such as Office 365 (including SharePoint, SfB, Project Server), CRMOL, Azure (Data Center, Infrastructure, Platform) and BI. 

Wondering what kind of scenarios the PTC’s can help you and your customers with, here are just a few examples.  So if you have a technical presales or advisory scenario with a need for assistance – just reach out. A PTC can scope the scenario for you!

Azure AD/Office 365	Configure Azure ADConnect to perform directory synchronization and set up SSO for customer
Azure AD/Office 365	Run IdFix in customer environment to remediate issues with on-premises directory prior to performing directory synchronization
Skype for Business/ Office 365	Extend customer Skype for Business or Lync environment into the cloud by setting up hybrid environment and moving user accounts into Office365
Skype for Business/ Office 365	Integrate on-premises PBX and on-premises SfB infrastructure with Cloud PBX in SfB Online to enable hybrid voice scenario
Skype for Business/ Office 365	Use minTopology to integrate on-premises PBX where no on-premises SfB infrastructure exists with Skype for Business Online services to enable hybrid voice scenario
Skype for Business/ Office 365	Configure federation between an on-premises or cloud SfB installation and the on-premises or cloud SfB install of a different organization in order to enable shared IM/Presence and meetings between the orgs.
Exchange/Office 365	Help configure Exchange Online Protection policies using advanced spam filtering options
Exchange/Office 365	Architectural review of hybrid deployment where Exchange is installed in multiple Active Directory forests
Exchange/Office 365	Configure Information Rights Management to protect documents in a hybrid environment
CRM Online/ Exchange	Setting up email configuration in CRMOL to send and receive emails out of the system
CRM Online/ SharePoint	Configuring and setting up document management functionality in CRMOL to integrate with SharePoint for better collaboration
Project Online	Project Online Development/SDK Training/Guidance
Project Online	A Lap Around Workflow Development In Project Online
Azure	Configuring Azure Site Recovery to orchestrate virtual machine recovery from site-to-site or site-to-Azure
Azure	Configuring Azure Backup Vault to protect VMs and Files and Folders for point in time restore
Azure AD Domain Services (preview) – AAD DS + MFA	Provide Identify with NTLM and Kerberos authentication and integration of AAD DS with Azure AD and Office 365
Azure VPN & ExpressRoute	Configure a hybrid solution for On-premises and Azure or other public cloud services as AWS.
Azure Resource Manager	To create applications from Azure Gallery templates simplifying the process of creation of reusable resources
Azure: SharePoint and O365	Hosting SharePoint farm on Azure and configure Hybrid connections across Office 365 and on-prem datacenters
Azure: SharePoint	Extend your on-prem SharePoint deployment to Azure for a scalable solution and get ready to move to cloud
Client and Devices	Standing up a full proof of concept environment for deploying Windows 10 to devices, including Surface, using Windows Server 2012 R2 and MDT 2013 Update 1
Client and Devices	Standing up a full proof of concept environment of Azure RemoteApp with a custom image joined to Active Directory servers and network resources running either on premises or in the cloud
Client and Devices	Requirements and planning sessions for building a Microsoft based RDS/VDI solution
Enterprise Mobility	Configure Conditional Access scenarios using Microsoft Intune and Office 365
Enterprise Mobility	Enabling Hybrid Mobility scenarios using Microsoft Intune and System Center Configuration Manager

Matt Hester
Sr. Partner Technology Strategist