Amazon Onboarding with Learning Manager: Chanci Turner

When transitioning your Microsoft workloads to AWS, it’s crucial to develop a comprehensive licensing strategy. AWS provides various options to address your licensing requirements and helps clarify the choices available. Whether your goal is to reduce costs, enhance security, or optimize the performance-to-price ratio of your applications, AWS offers three distinct pathways to ensure you achieve your objectives.

This article outlines the three licensing approaches to help you refine your strategy: “Bring Your Own Licenses,” license-included, and modernization. We will delve into the pros and cons of each option.

Option 1: Bring Your Own Licenses (BYOL)

One of the primary challenges in migrating your on-premises Windows workloads to AWS is determining the fate of your significant investments in purchased Windows Server and SQL Server licenses. Fortunately, AWS provides various options for bringing your licenses along during migration.

Benefits of BYOL

Cost Reduction: Leverage the efficiency of AWS cloud while minimizing expenses by utilizing your pre-existing, on-premises licenses. The licensing costs associated with the products you bring are not included in the instance pricing.
License Management: With BYOL, you retain control over the deployment of your licenses. Using the AWS License Manager, you can ensure compliance throughout your license lifecycle.
Extended Software Lifecycle: BYOL allows you to prolong the lifecycle of older software versions, provided you adhere to Microsoft’s terms and conditions. For instance, we had a client successfully running an outdated version of SQL Server 2000. Anything is possible!
Access to a Variety of Products: If you are using software that is not offered as license-included, several BYOL options enable you to utilize these products on AWS.

License Eligibility

Consideration of BYOL eligibility is essential, as it may depend on purchase dates, tenancy, or version criteria. While eligibility is determined by the licensing terms of each product, the following Microsoft agreements and programs—subject to change—may allow BYOL:

Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA)
Microsoft Server and Cloud Enrollment (SCE)
Microsoft Enterprise Subscription Agreement (EAS)
Microsoft Product and Services Agreement (MPSA)
Microsoft Open Value and Open Value Subscription

Keep in mind that Windows Server and SQL Server licenses acquired through a cloud solution provider (CSP) are not eligible for BYOL on AWS.

License Mobility

License Mobility is a benefit of Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) that permits the transfer of specific product licenses to shared cloud infrastructure, including default (shared) tenancy Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances. Active Microsoft Software Assurance is required to be eligible for License Mobility. It’s important to fill out the License Mobility Verification Form when utilizing this benefit.

AWS License Manager

As you migrate software to the cloud, multiple factors must be considered, such as compliance with evolving license terms and avoiding excess usage of licenses. AWS License Manager simplifies the process of managing software licenses across AWS and on-premises environments. This tool gives you control and visibility into your license usage, establishes limits on overages, and minimizes the risk of non-compliance and misreporting. Furthermore, AWS License Manager can integrate with other AWS services, such as Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts.

If you are bringing licenses to AWS, you will need to supply your own media, software, and images. AWS VM Import facilitates this by aiding in the transfer of virtual machine images from your local environment to AWS.

For businesses with stable and predictable workloads, BYOL is an excellent option that allows you to leverage the advantages of AWS Cloud while utilizing your existing licenses.

Option 2: License-Included Instances

The license-included option permits the use of instances where licensing costs are integrated into the instance price. This approach offers a pay-as-you-go model, ensuring you only pay for the resources you need when you need them. For instance, an online retailer may see spikes in traffic during the holiday season, making it impractical to pay upfront for licenses and hardware that are only necessary during peak times. By adopting a license-included, pay-as-you-go strategy when migrating to the cloud, you can minimize unnecessary expenses by paying only for resources when required.

Customers pay for instances that encompass Windows Server and SQL Server licensing on a per-virtual core, per-second basis. You can explore pricing examples in the AWS Pricing Calculator.

Benefits of License-Included

Pay-As-You-Go: You only pay for resources when needed, ceasing payments as soon as you turn them off.
Version Flexibility: The pay-as-you-go, license-included option allows for the use of both current and legacy versions of Microsoft software. AWS provides Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for any supported version of Windows Server or SQL Server.
Reduced Vendor Lock-In: This approach prevents you from being tied down to complicated and restrictive licensing terms or ongoing maintenance costs associated with Software Assurance.
Access to Latest Versions: You don’t need to pay for Software Assurance to access the latest software versions. AWS makes new versions readily available at no extra cost.
Compliance Management: AWS manages the data center operations and handles license compliance, allowing you to focus on your business.

If you are considering modernizing your infrastructure, license-included instances facilitate a seamless transition off of Windows Server or SQL Server to AWS services. When the time comes, you can simply discontinue use and payment for your Windows Server or SQL Server license-included instances.

In addition to Windows Server and SQL Server, AWS offers options for license-included cloud desktop and application streaming, such as WorkSpaces, which features a Windows 10 experience based on Windows Server 2016 and 2019, with the option to include Office Professional.

For further insights on workplace policies, check out this resource. If you’re interested in opportunities in this field, this job listing is an excellent resource. To expand your knowledge on the topic, you might also find it beneficial to explore this blog post about related learning strategies.