Licensing

Licensing ain't easy, but it's necessary.

"Why can't Microsoft make licensing simpler?"

— every customer ever.

We get it. We live it everyday. And, we have a better way to explain it. A typical licensing conversation takes about 30 minutes and in that time we can explain just about everything you need to know. Often we can create a quote after a single call, but sometimes it takes a bit more work on your side to match the products to the people. Here at LiftOff, we understand the technology and products as well as the licensing.

Microsoft 365 Licensing

LiftOff offers Microsoft cloud licensing to government contractors, state and local governments, and commercial organizations. We leverage several Microsoft licensing programs designed to benefit whatever client we’re working with.

Agreement for Online Services - Government (AOS-G)

LiftOff is one of the leading Microsoft partners certified to sell AOS-G licensing. This enables government and commercial organizations under 500 users to purchase Microsoft licensing from a qualified Microsoft partner and have their tenant placed in either the Government Community Cloud (GCC) or the GCC High.

Features:

  • Licenses and add-ons can be added anytime during the one-year commitment period, but they cannot be removed. At annual renewal, you can upsize, downsize, or even cancel.

  • Protection against Microsoft price increases. The price you pay in year one will carry through for three years.

  • Add one license or 1,000 licenses. We’re happy to help with whatever you need!

  • The fully staffed LiftOff licensing team usually responds to quote requests within a couple of hours. After approval, licenses are normally available directly in your tenant within a day.

  • Microsoft is your main method of technical support. They are available 24x7x365.

  • When you license with LiftOff, you’ll receive a ton of included value-added benefits.

    Why LiftOff?

Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)

CSP is a Microsoft licensing agreement that allows clients to procure Microsoft cloud services and software licenses directly from Microsoft partners, who often offer bundled services. Clients can purchase not only cloud licenses, but also tailored IT services that might better fit their organizational needs.

LiftOff CSP Key Features:

⏵ Billing Flexibility

Clients can choose a monthly or annual contract when procuring licenses.

⏵ Self-Service Licensing

Clients can utilize a marketplace to add or remove licenses themselves.

⏵ Tier 1 technical support via reseller

The CSP provider is the primary method of support option under this model, but escalation to Microsoft is possible.

GCC

Government Community Cloud

The Microsoft Government Community Cloud (GCC) was designed for state and local governments to meet certain security and compliance standards such as FedRAMP, HIPAA, and CJIS.

Specifically, the GCC offers the following features and standards:

  • Data Center locations only in the United States.

  • Access to data is restricted to screened Microsoft personnel.

  • State CJIS cloud compliance regulations in most states.

  • Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) accreditation at a High Impact level.

  • Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement (DFARS).

  • International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). NIST 800-53/171.

GCC HIGH

Government Community Cloud High

To meet the unique and evolving requirements of contractors holding or processing DoD controlled unclassified information (CUI) or subject to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Microsoft offers the GCC High environment.

Key features of the GCC High include:

  • Data Center locations only in the United States.

  • Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) accreditation at a High Impact level.

  • DFARS 7012 and NIST SP 800-171 compliance.

  • CMMC 2.0 Levels 2-3 alignment.

  • International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) export controls.

  • PII protections up to IL4.

Features + Benefits

Why license with LiftOff?

Here's why you should work with us. These are all included as part of our licensing package:

  • Prior to your annual renewal, we will offer expert licensing advice for your renewals and your best options for sizing, upgrading (or downgrading). We will work with you to ensure you don't overspend on things you don't need!

  • Stay up-to-date on advanced features and functionality in Microsoft 365. Wondering about conditional access policies? Curious about sensitivity labels? Interested in Data Loss Prevention? Our expert engineers will keep you informed and follow up with helpful links, documents, and a recorded copy of the webinar.

  • LiftOff will be proactive in consulting your organization with best practices for security including protecting your Microsoft 365 tenant from phishing and hacking as well as securing your inbound and outbound data from phishing threats, impersonation attacks, and malware.

  • Oh no! Do you think one of your users has been compromised? LiftOff can provide steps that may help mitigate the fallout from a successful phishing campaign.

  • LiftOff will provide training for your existing IT staff as well as new staff. We will cover common tasks for managing your environment including on-boarding and off-boarding new users, managing your data, and securing your environment.

  • LiftOff can provide yearly checkups of your Microsoft 365 cloud tenant to ensure everything is set up with best practices and that any new options and features are enabled and properly configured.

  • LiftOff will assist with configuring your organization’s Microsoft 365 retention/preservation policies. Additionally, we will advise on the proper ways to retrieve preserved data.

  • LiftOff provides end user training videos for the most common Microsoft 365 products such as desktop Office applications including Outlook, Office Online, Teams and Outlook Web App.

  • We will proactively alert your organization for recommended changes to your environment to ensure you remain secure, compliant and up-to-date (Updating TLS, SMTP Relay, etc.).

  • LiftOff can consult with your organization regarding the deployment of Microsoft Entra Connect. If your organization is already relying on Entra Connect, LiftOff will ensure that the service works as expected and assist in the event of a problem. In addition, we can assist if an upgrade to a new server is needed.

  • As new Microsoft products become available, LiftOff will provide information and guidance regarding options available to you.

You’ll be glad you found us!

Our fully-staffed Licensing team is ready to help. If you have questions about the licensing menu, need licenses quickly, or need a budget quote, we can help.