Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)

Microsoft CSP at a glance

The Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) programme is how Microsoft licensing and Azure are bought and managed through an accredited Microsoft partner rather than directly from Microsoft. The partner provisions your licences and Azure consumption, bills you, provides support, and manages the commercial relationship with Microsoft on your behalf.

Ascent Technology is a Microsoft Direct CSP Partner – the tier Microsoft reserves for partners that meet its highest standards for operational capability and enterprise delivery. Ascent is also a Microsoft Solutions Partner, accredited for Data & AI, Infrastructure, Digital & App Innovation and Modern Work.

Through our CSP, you buy Microsoft licensing and consume Azure under a single partner that already understands enterprise data platforms, not a reseller that steps away once the order is placed.

One partner, one accountable line

When Azure is bought from one supplier, supported by another, and architected by a third, no one has the full picture. A billing query turns into finger-pointing, a cost overrun surfaces late because nobody is watching the whole estate, and a licensing decision gets made with no view of its architectural consequence.

Consuming Azure through Ascent’s CSP brings it back under one partner. The team that designs and governs your data platform is the same one through which you license and consume it. Billing, first-line support, and active cost governance sit with people who already know your environment – watching spend from inside the tenant rather than advising on it from outside.

The result is one partner accountable for the relationship and the platform, not four suppliers pointing at each other. You decide what to run; we make it visible, keep it supported, and give you the levers to keep the spend down.

What you get through Ascent’s CSP

Our CSP covers the parts of the Microsoft relationship a licence reseller leaves you to manage alone:

• Microsoft licensing – Microsoft 365, Windows Server, SQL Server, perpetual and subscription software, and the wider Microsoft estate, scaled up or down as your needs change.
• One consolidated invoice – licensing and Azure consumption on a single monthly Rand invoice, with purchase-order support and payment terms.
• A first line of support – technical issues come to Ascent, not a Microsoft queue.
• Cost governance – the team that architects your platform watches the spend and gives you the levers to control it: usage and budget oversight, Azure Reservations and Savings Plans, and rightsizing, with licensing and architecture decisions taken together rather than in isolation.

Billing on business terms, in Rand

Microsoft bills Azure consumption in US dollars. Ascent handles the conversion and issues you a single monthly invoice in Rand – a proper South African tax invoice that covers licensing and Azure consumption together, with purchase-order support and agreed payment terms.

That gives finance a clean purchase-order trail, one reconciliation, and clear visibility of what was spent and why – the commercial discipline a company credit card cannot offer. For most finance and IT leaders, that is what makes the model worth moving to.

Related reading: Azure by Credit Card vs CSP: Why Finance and IT Prefer CSP.

Support that starts with Ascent

Under CSP, Microsoft does not support you directly – its Azure and Microsoft 365 portals route CSP customers to their partner of record. That partner is Ascent.

We are your first line of technical support: we diagnose and resolve using our knowledge of your environment, and when an issue genuinely needs Microsoft, we escalate it through our own Microsoft support agreement with priority handling. You hold no separate Microsoft support contract, you never sit in a public support queue, and the response commitments you work to are ours – set with you, not inherited from a platform.

Why a Direct CSP Partner matters

Not every CSP carries the same weight. Microsoft’s Direct CSP tier is held by partners vetted to sell, bill, manage and support customers in their own right – a bar most providers never clear, reselling through a distributor instead. The tier is reassessed annually and requires the partner to hold an active Microsoft support agreement.

That is what stands behind the support above: because Ascent is Direct CSP, we escalate to Microsoft directly rather than queuing behind a distributor, and we answer for the service end to end. When you choose a CSP, price is quickly matched. What is not matched is whether the partner understands the architecture behind what it sells.

Related reading: Selecting the Right Microsoft CSP for Your Business.

Typical scenarios where CSP fits

CSP through Ascent tends to make sense when:

• You’re running Azure on a credit card – Card limits, expiries and declines interrupt production workloads, and finance has no purchase-order trail. CSP replaces that with proper invoicing and terms.
• Your Azure and licensing are spread across suppliers – Consolidating them under one partner gives you a single invoice, one support route, and one view of cost.
• Your Enterprise Agreement is up for renewal – As Microsoft moves smaller EA customers toward CSP, it is the natural path to keep flexibility and monthly billing without an enterprise-scale commitment.

Purchasing Azure and Microsoft licensing through Ascent

Buying through Ascent’s CSP is straightforward, and moving an existing estate does not disrupt what is already running. We assess your current licensing and Azure consumption, agree a transition that protects continuity, set up consolidated billing and reporting, and take on first-line support. We plan the sequence around your existing commitments and renewal dates to avoid a licensing gap or a double bill during the move.

From there you license and consume as you need, scaling up or down and adding services as the business changes.

Ascent’s services for Azure

CSP is the commercial layer. The architecture, migration and optimisation work sits with our consulting practice, and the two are independent. You can buy your licensing and Azure through us without changing how your environment is delivered, and we will work with the architecture you already have.

They are strongest together: when Ascent both delivers and bills your Azure, licensing decisions are tied to architectural ones and cost governance becomes continuous rather than periodic. That is an advantage you unlock by combining them, never a condition of either.

See the delivery side: Azure Consulting Services and Data Platform Modernisation.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why choose Ascent Technology

Ascent has spent more than two decades building and governing enterprise data platforms, and we bring that to every Azure environment we bill for – Modernising, Optimising and Protecting it, not just processing the order.

We have migrated and re-architected enterprise Azure for organisations across sectors: the move to Azure cut ERP support calls by half at Bidfood; we re-architected the Azure data platform that runs Rand Mutual Assurance; and we consolidated 4Racing (formerly Phumelela Gaming) onto Azure to strip out cost and complexity.

We support clients across South Africa, EMEA, the UK and North America, held to a long-standing promise of Cheaper and Better: the discipline of a partner judged by outcomes, not just orders.

“All my previous engagements with Ascent had resulted in first class service, exceptional advice, and a team that not only always made itself available, whatever the hour, but that also was prepared to go the extra mile to make these projects a success.” – Johan Kok, IT Executive, Bidfood SA

Bring your Microsoft cloud under one roof

Pulling your Azure and Microsoft licensing together under one partner is the first step toward control.

Contact Us for a review of your current licensing and Azure billing, and to see what a Direct CSP partner changes: how you buy, how you’re supported, and who’s accountable for the service.

Related reading

> Azure Consulting Services
> Data Platform Modernisation
> Selecting the Right Microsoft CSP
> Azure by Credit Card vs CSP
> Microsoft Tiered EA/MPSA Pricing Ends