Enterprise License Considerations for Irish Public Sector Bodies Procuring Cloud Services

In response to the latest guidance note published by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP Cloud Services Guidance Note February 2021) on Cloud Services Procurement, Version 1 has published a Whitepaper that addresses the contractual and commercial elements that specifically relate to the software vendor licensing fundamentals to be considered when public sector bodies procure cloud services.

This Whitepaper, created by Jason Pepper, Head of SAM Services and Ronan Laffan, Head of Advisory Services at Version 1, summarises our observations and recommendations from an enterprise license perspective on some of the points raised within the guidance note and outlines the importance of understanding license implications for before, during and after cloud adoption, including:

• Software license estate rightsizing.
• Cloud vendor market assessment.
• Cloud pricing models.
• Cloud financial management – the importance of FinOps.
• Contractual good governance.

The challenge when adopting cloud from a licensing perspective will be unique to each public sector body’s environment and generally centres around the details of your ‘as is’ and ‘to be’ software estate, the cloud vendor being adopted and subsequent financial commitments.

Version 1’s cloud and license consultants are highly experienced in optimising enterprise license estates and supporting customers adopt cloud technologies.  Whether you are still exploring your cloud strategy, implementing a mass migration to Public Cloud or looking to simplify and optimise the management of multiple cloud environments, Version 1 helps customers realise the business benefits of our range of cloud services.

Additional information published by Version 1, that responds to the initial OGCIO Cloud Computing Advice Notice published in October 2019, includes the following response, webinar and guide on ‘Becoming Cloud First.’