Good, bad, or indifferent, Microsoft is pushing to replace SPLA. The writing is on the wall; SPLA is D.E.A.D. Then I woke up. My heart was pounding, sweat dripping from my brow, and my wife whispering to tell me everything was OK, it was just a dream. SPLA Man is still alive. But for how much longer?
Thank goodness it was just a dream. But the reality is things are changing. It’s CSP Hoster, it’s Flexible Virtualization, it’s AzureArc, whatever the topic, change is on the horizon. What’s interesting about SPLA to me is the following:
My anonymous sources tell me it is roughly a 7 BILLION dollar business globally. I know that is how much Microsoft probably spends on toilet paper annually, but for any other company, a 7-billion-dollar business is massive.
Imagine running that 7-billion-dollar business without any overhead. There are very few licensing resources; Microsoft just discontinued their getlicensingready program. The only actual expense in my eyes is paying a 3rd party audit firm to collect revenue. Even in that scenario, there’s a massive return on investment.
Hosters still love SPLA. Why? All the other programs Microsoft introduced have nothing to do with SPLA, but everything to do with end-customers. In SPLA, hosters control the end-end customer experience. In CSP, one hoster mentioned “We are just another reseller.”
Microsoft continues to raise pricing but it has little impact on hosters. Hosters do not price solutions based on the cost of an individual license, but on the overall solution.
Compliance risk has always been an issue, but it is present no matter what you do. Even in Azure Arc, there’s no license verification; you simply check a box. Does your Azure admin understand the licensing impact?
I don’t know if I just provided a case for SPLA, but it doesn’t appear it is going away anytime soon. You must understand your different licensing options and use cases, know your risk before it becomes a risk, and, lastly, if you want to move to Azure, go for it. But I recommend understanding what is going on in your own data center before moving to someone else’s.
Thanks for reading,
SPLA Man
