AWS Microsoft Licensing: The Benefits of BYOL You Should Know

Cloud computing is perhaps the best IT invention with proven benefits for hundreds of industries. Cloud leverages its foundational features of storage and collaboration making traditional backups unnecessary. Cloud also allows businesses to save hours of work and makes it possible for people to work on one project simultaneously.

Typically, licenses are tied to specific servers. This makes licensing challenging for businesses because they cannot be reused without breaking licensing laws. License concerns such as expiry periods, access by staff when needed, and so on can be a real headache.

Many software companies offer licenses based on subscriptions. But most companies have enough of them to cater to their needs and don’t need to buy new licenses.

Cloud computing provides a solution to these hassles using Bring Your Own License (BYOL). With BYOL, you can reassign your license across devices as need be.

Let’s Explore BYOL and the amazing benefits it offers businesses

What Is BYOL?

BYOL, or "bring your own license", is a great way to bring on-premises licenses to AWS. You can use a shared or dedicated deployment option and take advantage of features such as Amazon EC2's AWS License Manager and targeted placement on Dedicated Hosts. Remember that while BYOL can save you money on instance costs, you'll be responsible for managing and upholding any licensing agreements when using BYOL.

The Key Features Of BYOL

Here are some key features of BYOL:

• Exceptional Flexibility: Businesses enjoy greater flexibility with true license mobility. Cloud migration services can be done without managing multiple licenses from different platforms and services for one product. This makes transitioning smooth and easy.
• Maximizing Cost Savings: BYOL (bring your own license) is a great way to reduce expenditures when upgrading the use of the software. It allows companies to share and migrate their licenses, something that concurrent licenses across multiple services can drastically increase costs. BYOL has several advantages for businesses of any size by letting them avoid these more significant upfront costs.
• Enhanced Freedom of Use: Businesses gain greater flexibility with the license terms, allowing them to tailor a service according to their specific needs. This helps increase efficiency and productivity while reducing costs associated with getting the work done.
• License and Usage Tracking: Cloud technology greatly simplifies keeping track of license validity and usage. With this approach, organizations no longer need to manage physical copies of licenses, making tracking much more accessible. In-depth reporting is available for greater insight into who uses which applications and when their licenses expire.

AWS Compatibility with BYOL

AWS complies with Microsoft’s licensing regulations by running your BYOL workspace on dedicated hardware on the AWS cloud. This provides predictability and consistency for your users.

However, not all software manufacturers optimize licensing for cloud use. Some licensing is based on user count, software usage, processors, etc. This presents a problem when users want to bring their own licenses to the cloud.

Different cloud delivery models offer different infrastructure. For example, with SaaS, customers have no control over cloud infrastructure but have control over OS and deployed apps. With PaaS, customers have no control over the OS but control deployed apps. AWS offers tools to make your software use on AWS easy.

MSFT Products Licensed to Migrate To AWS

With BYOL, you don’t have to discard your valid licenses or pay for new ones. You can manage these licenses using AWS License Manager. AWS Microsoft Licensing works on the following software.

• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Microsoft SharePoint Server
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft System Center
• Microsoft Remote Desktop Services
• Microsoft Skype for Business Server
• Microsoft Dynamics products
• Microsoft BizTalk Server

The Advantages of BYOL

Licensing has evolved in step with other technology. From perpetual licensing to site licensing and volume discounting, BYOL offers users the same convenience as giving up the use of cash for plastic. The Bring Your Own License (BYOL) approach to Microsoft licensing in AWS provides numerous advantages. With BYOL, you can pay for renewals on a flexible, pay-as-you-go basis and leverage a wide range of current and legacy software products. In addition, you do not have to commit to any enterprise agreements or pay any associated upgrade fees.

Adopting the BYOL model can lead to critical financial benefits as well. Organizations with 250 or more users and devices are eligible for the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, which offers significant discounts and continual support from Microsoft. Additionally, organizations can lock in pricing upfront and spread payments out over three years; this effectively lowers up-front costs. If it fits your needs, consider taking advantage of the more excellent built-in value that comes with using vendor licensing paired with an Azure subscription plan instead of opting into BYOL. Doing so would promote standardization across business systems while simplifying management tasks during cloud migration services processing.

BYOL also enables you to move from one service to another using one license instead of holding a different license for every platform. This also eliminates spending every time you get another license. You don’t need to amend the agreement to renew the license or pay for upgrades. With one license, it’s easier to track the terms of service and validity periods. What’s more, you pay as you go, renewing licenses when you need to. BYOL works across different software. You only need to know which ones.

Software Assurance from Microsoft’s licensing enables volume licensing which allows users to use their licenses on AWS cloud and on-premise. License Mobility through Software Assurance is available for Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Microsoft SharePoint Server. Windows Server is not eligible.

Options for Bringing Licenses to AWS

Have you already moved your Microsoft licenses to AWS or are you thinking about it? Here are your options which are dependent on Microsoft’s change of terms as of October 1, 2019.

If you don’t have Software Assurance and licensing you bought before October 1, 2019, you can get dedicated hardware on Amazon EC2 hosts. This also allows you to BYOL your Microsoft licenses without Software Assurance. However, you can’t upgrade to license versions introduced after October 1, 2019.

When you have Software Assurance, you can BYOL Microsoft licenses to AWS cloud. Buying licenses through AWS is the best option for cutting costs because it runs on affordable monthly fees. AWS manages the compliance details and can support multiple Microsoft software.

The Basics of BYOL and AWS Microsoft Licensing

AWS has been a go-to cloud computing solution for businesses for over 10 years. AWS offers licensing options such as the pay-as-you-go or BYOL model. Users can transfer and manage previously purchased licenses for Microsoft Windows Server and SQL Server to AWS. You can pay for AWS licenses monthly or yearly.

The AWS Licensing Options

AWS has two licensing options under Amazon EC2. One is the flexible pay-as-you-go option while the second one is the bring your own license option.

• Pay-as-you-go: Customers can buy instances with licenses as part of the package. These licenses include Windows Server and the SQL server. You only pay according to usage and do not concern yourself with managing the license.
  AWS’s pay-as-you-go is available for more than 160 different cloud computing uses. This option is a favorite for many because it works like regular bills in America. You only pay for what you use for as long as you use it. Additionally, it enables you to shift as business shifts due to different factors.
  The model eliminates the fixed-rate budgets that tie you down to a specific amount even when the business goes down. AWS also offers reserved instances where you get discounts depending on how much you pay upfront. The more you pay, the bigger the discount.
• Bring Your Own License (BYOL): Customers can enjoy two tenancy options with the AWS BYOL licensing option. The shared tenancy option is available for license mobility eligible products with software assurance. The second type of tenancy is the dedicated type which works with licenses not eligible for EC2.
  AWS License Manager simplifies the BYOL experience by allowing users to efficiently manage their software license, for example, Windows and SQL Server, which demand dedicated servers. AWS BYOL allows you to BYOL on Amazon EC2 Dedicated hosts yet offers the simple nature of Amazon EC2.

Final Thoughts

The goal of BYOL is to help business people work smarter, spend less, and reap the best out of data. It’s easy to jumpstart the process with Agilisum. All you need to do is just request an assessment for your Windows workloads (Windows Licensing and Optimization Assessment). This way, we can help you optimize and reduce more than 50% of your costs.

As an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, we have the liberty to even provide the assessment as a complimentary offer to you. Contact us for BYOL and other cloud computing services. We will be glad to help