Solving the licensing complexity conundrum

Solving licensing challenges can boost cloud migration success

When they develop their cloud migration solutions, most organizations typically assess the suitability of their application portfolio for migration, and they roughly estimate migration costs and total cost of ownership. They make a budget, and work begins. However, many companies soon face challenges—and ballooning costs—due to issues with licensing requirements for software, hardware, networks, etc. Deloitte’s internal research indicates that licensing costs can consume as much as 24% of IT spend, so any problems could seriously impact migration costs. Therefore, at the beginning of an enterprise cloud migration journey, it’s imperative to identify potential licensing challenges and develop strategies to mitigate them.

The cloud licensing challenges enterprises face will be unique to their architectures, application portfolios, and migration goals. However, there are several issues common to most migrations, such as portability, costs and lost discounts, licensing gaps and contractual issues, and inadequate license management. To mitigate these issues, it’s crucial to develop a licensing mitigation strategy and optimize the licensing portfolio before migration. It’s also essential to integrate the licensing mitigation strategy with the overall cloud migration strategy. By doing so, organizations can get out in front of many licensing issues that might arise, reduce or avoid potential costs, and boost chances for long-term migration success.

To learn more about mitigating licensing challenges during migration, read our latest paper, “Key mitigation strategies to overcome licensing challenges during migration.”