Delivering £1.8m savings on a client's cloud migration

project results

• £1.8m estimated cost savings over 3 years
• Maximised optimisation of licensing to deliver short-term savings
• Full review and update of operational processes
• Now ready for a cost-effective cloud migration longer-term

the challenge

Our client was looking to migrate from its on-premises Oracle database to Amazon Web Services (AWS). An initial migration would move the database to Amazon RDS for Oracle. A full migration to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL was planned in the future.

how we engaged

With AWS and the organisation’s system integrators focused on planning the migration and transforming the Oracle instances into Amazon RDS, Synyega was initially engaged to identify opportunities to reduce software licensing costs as part of this journey.

We used the Amazon Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) to understand the existing licensing situation and what options might be available. To fulfil the brief, we needed a clear understanding of the initial Oracle licence allocation and how the end state was to be configured on AWS

By focusing on these key points, Synyega’s ITAM and Cloud experts were able to ensure a strategic and risk-averse contribution to the bank’s IT transformation was achieved and cost savings were achieved during the project.

our solution

We worked with AWS and the system integrators to understand the output from the SCT and how that mapped onto the proposed Amazon RDS for Oracle environment. We had to factor in the client’s plans to use the ‘licence included’ model, because the organisation intended to later transform to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL . Therefore, modelling only from the ‘licence included’ model, we reviewed the output and quantified cost savings for the planned migration.

Our team of Oracle and AWS experts worked on the decommission schedule, which is often overlooked for licensing and can lead to costly mistakes. The result was a decommissioning timetable that would ensure that all licences are returned to the pool or cancelled in a timely manner.

The next step was to maximise licensing optimisation in the new solution. Because we had visibility of the current estate and the end state, we delivered a model that would make the best use of the licences already in place. We also advocated for a move to the BYOL licence option to cover the new landscape, which would push costs down even further.

working with the client

Finally, working with the client’s team, we identified the orders that represented the best and worst value for money. We then provided the organisation’s stakeholders with a planned sequence of Oracle support contract cancellations. This gave the client a clear to-do list of decommissioning and cost-cutting tasks to continue with after migration.

client benefits

The client’s journey to the cloud is ongoing, but it now has a clear licensing goal and destination. This clarifies understanding of what the organisation has now and how it can best use its assets, putting it on track for an estimated £1.8m in cost savings over 3 years.