The market for second hand licenses you never knew about and how it could save you $$$
TL/DR The European Union has established the principle that software can be transferred to another party without the authorisation of the copyright owner.
Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the legal protection of computer programs. Establishes that:
✓ If the software license was purchased within the EU
✓ The license was an granted from an unlimited period (ie a perpetual license - not rented)
✓ The original use of the license is made unusable (ie the software is deleted)
Then you have the right to resell this license to a third party.
This principle is acknowledged by software providers such as Microsoft, who issued this guidance to partners
Why is this important for cloud ?
Software providers are evolving to a consumption based rental model, so perpetual licenses are less available than they have been historically.
Each company uses it servers in different ways, however taking Windows Server as an example then the majority of users of Windows Server 2019 would be happy to stay on that version and not upgrade to Windows Server 2022. The only motivator to move would be when Windows Server 2019 would be end of life (extended support is available for Windows Server 2019 until 2029)
So if your enterprise wants to expand and bring its own Windows Server 2016 licenses to cloud other than Azure, then it may face a brick wall from Microsoft. Any licenses sold by Microsoft after 2019 don’t have the “BYOL” rights to run on AWS or GCP using dedicated hosts.
However there is a very active market in second hand licenses with the principle benefits of:
✓ If purchased before 2019 they have the ability to be resold in perpetuity (Windows Server 2019 licenses can be purchased in perpetuity)
✓ Can therefore be used as a license on a dedicated host on your preferred cloud platform
✓ Can save between 50% to 85% of the total cost of ownership of running servers in the cloud versus pay as you go Windows Server licenses.
✓ Are offered at a discount to current retail licenses.For example the retail price for Windows 2016 Standard edition is $110.25 whereas these licenses can be purchased second hand for $41.70
✓ Can be resold if you don’t need them anymore.
Summary:
Consider purchasing pre-loved licenses to reduce your cost of ownership of cloud virtual machines.
All content is my personal opinion and not the opinion of current / former employers