- FinOps
- A discipline that brings finance, engineering and procurement together to manage cloud and software cost as a continuous practice — delivering spend visibility, accountability and ongoing optimization instead of a one-off cleanup.
- GreenOps
- Extending FinOps to sustainability: measuring and reducing the CO₂ footprint of cloud workloads alongside their cost, so cost and carbon are optimized together rather than traded off.
- Microsoft cost optimization
- Reducing Microsoft spend across licensing, cloud usage, rates and contracts without losing capability — by matching products and quantities to real demand and negotiating the right commercial terms.
- CSP (Cloud Solution Provider)
- A Microsoft partner program through which organizations buy Microsoft 365 and Azure licences via a partner instead of directly — typically with flexible terms, consolidated billing and first-level support.
- NCE (New Commerce Experience)
- Microsoft's current CSP purchasing model. It sets commitment terms (monthly, annual or multi-year), cancellation windows and price rules for Microsoft 365 and Azure subscriptions bought through a partner.
- EA (Enterprise Agreement)
- A volume licensing agreement for larger organizations, historically with negotiated discounts and a three-year term. Microsoft is steering many customers toward MCA-E and CSP as EA availability narrows.
- MCA-E (Microsoft Customer Agreement – Enterprise)
- A newer, evergreen contract that replaces much of the Enterprise Agreement. It has no fixed end date and simpler terms, but typically less negotiated discounting than a classic EA.
- Effective License Position (ELP)
- A reconciliation of what an organization owns versus what it actually deploys and uses — the baseline for spotting over-licensing, compliance gaps and reclaimable spend.
- Software Assurance
- A Microsoft benefit bundled with some volume licences that adds upgrade rights, deployment and support benefits, and use rights such as the Azure Hybrid Benefit.
- Azure Hybrid Benefit
- A licensing benefit that lets organizations reuse existing Windows Server or SQL Server licences with Software Assurance to cut the cost of the equivalent Azure resources.
- Reserved Instances & Savings Plans
- Azure commitment models that trade a one- or three-year usage commitment for a lower rate. Reserved Instances commit to specific resources; Savings Plans commit to an hourly spend across eligible services.
- Microsoft 365 E3 vs E5
- Two enterprise Microsoft 365 plans. E5 adds advanced security, compliance, analytics and voice on top of E3. Many users hold E5 but only use E3-level features — a common downgrade saving.