Splendid Insights
Licensing costs reduction
The road to licensing with lower costs
As the volume of data stored in databases continues to grow, our need for resources grows too – as does licensing costs. Is there a better way? Let’s see.
As you read this, the volume of data stored in databases is growing exponentially. With the connected economy and the Internet of Things, there is vast volumes of data. As this data increases, so does our need for resources such as storage and CPUs, which in turn results in more database licenses and the associated costs and constraints.
100% open source vs licensed software
It simply comes down to cost. For 100% open source software, you will never pay a one-off license fee and for licensed software you will. So there’s the first saving. Of course, there are companies that add a service-based value to 100% open source software, like 24-7 technical support and release management – and they charge a yearly subscription fee for this. But licensed software doesn’t stop at a one-off fee – far from it. You also normally pay a yearly maintenance fee which is around 20% of the one-off license fee to cover new releases, 24-7 technical support and release management.
Huge savings are possible
From here, things really stack up for the licensed software route. It becomes incredibly expensive when it comes to databases in relation to the exponential growth of data in those databases. And so here is the biggest savings of 100% open source software versus licensed software – you’ll typically save around 80% on costs related to license and maintenance fees over a five year period. Unbelievable isn’t it?
It’s time to discover real agility
Businesses are being increasingly caught in a stranglehold of licensing costs. It’s no surprise then that many organisations want to switch to open source software. They want freedom, agility and lower costs.
Thankfully, today there are lots of great open source alternatives. Added to this, they have solid solutions and services to migrate existing databases to open source databases. And as an extra bonus, the software investments they made in the past can be honoured and maintained and made available in a new open source format.
But perhaps the biggest win is the freedom to grow as they need to, without the constant shadow of burgeoning licensing costs hanging over them.