Financial Institution Optimizes Microsoft Licensing During Complex Cloud Migration
Company Profile
In 2021, this large and established financial services institution—with hundreds of millions of dollars under management—embarked on a transformative ‘cloud-first’ strategy to migrate its entire Microsoft estate to the cloud. The key drivers for this initiative included higher service availability, improved scalability, and enhanced flexibility.
This strategic shift posed a significant licensing challenge, particularly around the risk of ‘double licensing.’ The in-house Software Asset Management (SAM) team was concerned that existing on-premises licenses could become obsolete in the new cloud environment where commercial models operate differently. This would force the organization to purchase additional licenses and drive up software costs.
Anglepoint—with its deep expertise in Microsoft licensing—was brought in to oversee and optimize licensing during this complex, multi-year cloud migration. By assessing which of the client’s existing licenses could be moved over to the new environment, Anglepoint was able to help the organization make the most efficient use of its Microsoft entitlement, minimizing the number of new licenses it needed to procure, resulting in a 6 percent reduction in required purchases.
The Challenge
Operating in the highly regulated financial services sector, this organization is exceptionally risk averse and takes a highly proactive approach to identifying and reducing its exposure to risk. This extends to the way it manages its SAM strategy, and its in-house software asset management team is always on the front foot to ensure that any change to its IT environment is closely managed from a licensing point of view, to ensure ongoing compliance and to avoid unplanned costs.
In 2021, driven by a desire for greater flexibility, scalability, and service availability, the organization made the strategic decision to migrate its entire Microsoft estate to the cloud, primarily leveraging Microsoft Azure. Not only would this be a huge technical undertaking, it would also carry major licensing ramifications. The in-house team needed to understand which of the software licenses covered by its existing Server and Cloud Enrollment (SCE) could be transferred to the cloud infrastructure, where they would be consumed differently. In particular, the company wanted to avoid costs associated with ‘double licensing,’ so was keen to migrate as many as possible of its existing licenses to the new environment, minimizing the need to purchase new ones. In addition, the organization wanted to ensure that software licensing was fully optimized and carefully managed in the new environment, helping it meet its long-term productivity and risk-avoidance goals.
With a very mature SAM program in place, the organization sought a software asset management provider that could provide deep-level guidance through this complex process. In addition to having extensive expertise in Microsoft on-premise and cloud entitlements, this partner would need to deliver highly strategic advice in addition to up-to-date and clean data about the status of its Microsoft licensing, as this would inform senior leadership decision making during the migration process.
Furthermore, while the organization had deployed ServiceNow technology to help with IT Asset Management, the tool’s software asset management features were not fully enabled. The organization’s SAM provider would need to manually discover what software had been deployed across the organization and assess how it was being used. This data would then need to be cross-referenced against its licensing entitlement.
These challenges were compounded by the timescales imposed by Microsoft. Once the migration began, the company would have just 180 days to ensure it was accurately licensed for the new cloud environment. Preparation would be key, with a clear action plan needed before the cloud migration could commence.
The Solution
Anglepoint’s team of Microsoft experts were brought in to assist with software license management during this multi-year cloud migration, forging a highly collaborative relationship with the in-house SAM team, as well as with other key stakeholders from across the business. These included server and database admins, infrastructure directors, systems architects, security teams, and procurement.
The Anglepoint team’s first task was to create an Effective Licensing Position (ELP) for the organization’s Microsoft estate prior to the migration. With more than 8,000 employees, vast operations, and a software asset management tool with only limited functionality, establishing an accurate picture of software deployments, usage, and licensing was a sizeable, manual undertaking.
Armed with clean data, Anglepoint was able to provide strategic recommendations to all key stakeholders about how it could cost-effectively apply existing Microsoft licenses to the new cloud environment. This included advice on how to leverage Microsoft’s Azure Hybrid Benefit, which is designed to help companies accelerate and reduce the cost of their cloud migrations.
Anglepoint also worked closely with the organization’s technical architects and engineers who were responsible for designing the new cloud-based environment. This collaboration ensured that – wherever possible – the new design corresponded to the organization’s pre-existing license agreement, minimizing the need to purchase more licenses.
After two years of planning and design, the cloud migration took place in 2023, with Anglepoint there every step of the way to ensure success from a licensing perspective. This involved the production of multiple interim data reports, showing the status of the organization’s Microsoft Estate during the transformation process, enabling the organization to track progress, as well as identify and remediate areas of concern. This intelligence played a central role in the organization completing its entire migration in the stipulated 180-day timeframe.
Once the cloud migration was complete, Anglepoint established a second ELP, this time leveraging Crayon’s Cloud Economic Assessment tool to baseline the new environment. This enabled Anglepoint to make further recommendations about how the organization could clean up and optimize its cloud-based estate.
The data discovered during the two ELPs and the interim reports was used to improve the capabilities of the organization’s ServiceNow tool, helping it gain more value from this investment.
Following the migration period, Anglepoint is now providing the organization with a fully managed servicefor its Microsoft estate, helping the organization to meet its long-term goals of minimizing risks while at the same time ensuring its users have access to the Microsoft solutions they need.
Results
- Enabled Bring Your Own Licenses: Anglepoint’s deep expertise ensured the organization continued to use as many existing software licenses as possible. By embracing Azure Hybrid Use Rights and Bring Your Own License, the financial institution unlocked a substantial annual savings of $3.1 million and increased flexibility.
- Cost Avoidance from Non-Licensable SQL Server MABS: The financial institution identified $24,000 in additional cost avoidance by pinpointing SQL Server Managed Backup Service (MABS) instances that did not require licensing. This proactive assessment further reduced unnecessary expenses.
- Risk Avoidance: Close management of the cloud migration process ensured compliance at all times during the process.
- Proactive Approach to SAM: Helped the organization go into the migration process with a clear action plan for success.
- Enhanced Technology: Data collected during manual discovery used to improve ServiceNow tool capabilities.
- Ongoing SAM Best Practices: Fully managed Microsoft software asset management service ensures ongoing best practices, reducing risks and boosting productivity.