Frequently asked questions

What is CSP?

A cloud service provider is a third-party company offering a cloud-based platform, infrastructure, application, or storage services. Much like a homeowner would pay for a utility such as electricity or gas, companies typically have to pay only for the amount of cloud services they use, as business demands require.

Besides the pay-per-use model, cloud service providers also give companies a wide range of benefits. Businesses can take advantage of scalability and flexibility by not being limited to physical constraints of on-premises servers, the reliability of multiple data centers with multiple redundancies, customization by configuring servers to your preferences, and responsive load balancing that can easily respond to changing demands. Though businesses should also evaluate security considerations of storing information in the cloud to ensure industry-recommended access and compliance management configurations and practices are enacted and met.

How do you become a Microsoft CSP?

1. Sign into the Partner Center dashboard with your work email (that is, your Azure AD tenant credentials).

2. Associate your MPN ID to your profile. If you're already enrolled in the MPN program, select the location MPN ID, which is linked to your incentives enrollments. The location MPN ID must be active and located in the same country as your CSP account. If you have not enrolled in the MPN program, enroll today.

3. Create your partner profile. You can either look up your company profile or enter company information manually. If your company is registered with Dun & Bradstreet, use the DUNS ID to look up your company information. If you want to provide your company details yourself, select Enter manually.

   For some countries, when you enter your address manually, we'll validate your address for you. If the address you enter differs from the validated one, we suggest you use the validated address. This ensures that the elements of the address are standardized as defined by the country's postal authority, are correctly formatted, and are shippable.

4. During verification, we might ask you for another document, or request that you complete a questionnaire. It can take us several days to review and verify the information you provide. We'll email you after we complete our review.

5. After we've verified your information, accept the Microsoft indirect reseller terms agreement. Go to Home page and select CSP from the Pending actions view on the right-hand side to sign Microsoft Partner Agreement.