Whenever a business gets an Azure or M365 account (or perhaps even both), a sense of excitement starts to fill in. After all, now you can do those projects and other items you have always wanted to do, at a very affordable price, you can scale resources up and down as you need, and you can perform tasks from wherever and whenever you want to, in a secure manner. But what happens if a license expires? What happens when Azure consumption is not paid? Is it the end of the world? Not really, and we explain the entire process in this article.
What The Process Is Like
Just because your license ends, it does not mean that you have lost all of your data or access to M365 or Azure portals, at least initially. Here is what exactly happens after a license is expired:
1. 365 Expiration:
Once your M365 license reaches a certain date, your account(s) actually goes into the state of “Expired”. This time period remains for 30 days, and believe it or not, you can still access all of your accounts, and data. You can still launch any or all of your software applications, and you can even add new ones if the need arises. You can also do your normal backup routine as you have always done. You can even add new licenses/subscriptions during this time period.
2. 365 Disabled:
You will reach this status after the 30 day mark is up and you have not renewed any of your licenses. This status will remain for the next 120 days. During this time frame, only your designated administrators can access the various portals and the backends. Also, they are the only ones that will be able to create any backups. In terms of your employees, access to M365 becomes blocked, and all access to email and the One Drive also become severed. There could be some access to the local files, but with very limited functionality. For example, they will not be able to save or make edits of their own files. However, at this point, you still have the ability to renew your licenses, and continue business as usual.
3. 365 Deprovisioned:
After the 120-day mark has passed, all of your portals and accounts cannot be accessed. Even backups cannot be created, and other applications and files cannot be accessed by anybody, including your administrators. At this point, Microsoft will start to delete all files, accounts, and data from its servers. At this point, you cannot even renew existing licenses. You have to purchase brand new ones, which can be expensive.
4. Azure Suspended:
Suspended subscriptions are usually Azure ones. Azure suspension is different from Office 365 suspension. To suspend Azure billing (charges against an Azure subscription PAYG, CSP or EA) the resources that are using the Azure subscription need to be deleted. Deleting Azure resources is the only way to release the resources for use by other users. Once all resources are deleted (and the deprovisioning process is started), then Azure subscriptions can be suspended.
Once an Azure resource is deleted, you have up to 7 days to recover the resources from Microsoft before the deprovisioning process is completed. The Azure Data resource (data vaults blobs storage etc.) de-provisioning process takes up to 30 days. At the end of the 30 days the data is deleted (deprovisioned) and is non recoverable. Technically you can recover resources in the 7 day and 30 day window, but in our experience this can be best described as “maybe”. The best practice is to keep your Azure payments current.
Conclusions
So as you can see, it is not all doom and gloom if your licenses and/or Azure subscription expires. Microsoft gives you plenty of time to renew, without losing any of your mission critical data. But it is always best to renew before the expiry date. It is always best to use the auto renew function in your M365 and/or Azure accounts, so you will not have to worry about missing a payment.
Or even better yet, you can always procure the services of a Cloud Services Provider like KAMIND IT to help you monitor the state of your licenses. Contact us today!
