On-premises to cloud migrations: your licensing options

Migrating the technology your business relies on to cloud can seem daunting, with many things to think about. One of those considerations is how the move to cloud will affect your licensing and what your licensing options are.

When migrating your Oracle technology to cloud, you have two choices: Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and License Included. In this blog, we’re going to examine each option along with other things to consider when choosing which direction to take.

Bring Your Own License (BYOL)

BYOL is a way to take your existing on-premises licenses into the cloud, which means you don’t need to spend more on licensing to make the move. This sounds ideal, but there are a few things to take into account, which may influence your choice.

Key questions to ask yourself:

• Is BYOL available for every product I want to move?
  
  While BYOL is available for many Oracle products, some products and editions have licensing limitations. To check this, have a look at the most recent pricelists for a comparable BYOL alternative before you begin strategizing your migration.
  
  
• Can all of my existing on-premises products migrate to cloud?
  
  Some older, legacy products may require later releases before a move can be made. Before you initiate any migration activity, plan it first. Check your status and which releases and editions are available.
  
  
• Can I make the move in 100 days?
  
  Oracle typically allows 100 days for you to move from on-premises to cloud using BYOL. After that period has passed, the licenses you’ve specified for use are deemed as deployed and you can no longer continue to use them on-premises. 
  
  Many businesses struggle to complete the migration within this timeframe. If you think this is a risk for your organization, we recommend engaging with Oracle or a partner to discuss an extension before making your licensing decision.
  
  
• Do I understand my current consumption?
  
  BYOL has a very specific ratio to apply to on-premises licensing. To work this out, you first need to have a clear picture of your on-premises consumption either by core or by user. You then take those on-premises consumption figures and apply the BYOL ratio. This can vary, but is typically two Oracle Compute Units (OCPUs) to one processor license or 25 Named User Plus (NUPs).
  
  

License Included

This option stems from Oracle’s Universal Credits scheme, where a pool of funds is allocated and drawn from as you consume instances and products in the Oracle Cloud.

It’s an alternative to any on-premises licensing you may have and useful if:

• Your migration takes time
• You want flexibility to spin cloud environments up and down
• You need to keep a hybrid environment as a backup and need on-premises as well as cloud licensing  

Many of our customers have dual environments for both BYOL and License Included and leverage these to best suit their needs.

Key things to consider:

• You need processes in place to control and forecast your cloud consumption
  
  Without firm control over your newly established cloud environment, you run the risk of your cloud tenants increasing exponentially. This will equate to ever increasing subscription costs and quickly burn up the pool of Universal Credits. 
  
  It’s very important to put a framework in place early on to define who can create instances of usage and who approves or rejects them.
  
  
• Establishing a cloud budget is essential
  
  Establish your Universal Credits cost for both your current financial period and the next. Ensure that someone in your business is responsible for it and actively monitors real-time usage against expected in order to be able to flag any differences in cost or expectation.
  
  

Conclusion

Planning and visibility are key to cloud migrations. Early decision-making around your licensing choices will improve the migration process and help you avoid costly mistakes, delivering financial savings in the long term.

How Inoapps can help

As you see, there are several elements to consider when deciding on your best route forward for licensing your new cloud environment. If you’d like to discuss this with people who do this every day, reach out to our friendly licensing team.

At Inoapps, we have extensive experience assisting our customers with migrating on-premises solutions to Oracle Cloud and optimizing their licensing and subscriptions to ensure maximum value from their Oracle investments. We are also Oracle Partners, accredited in the Joint Partner Engagement program and the Oracle Partner Software Asset Management (VSAM) Service.

Inoapps is here to help you regain visibility, take control and expand your licensing knowledge around your Oracle software assets. If you’d like to know more about our Oracle Licensing and Subscription services, visit our web page, or reach out—our Oracle licensing experts are on hand to help you get to grips with your challenges.