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Thousands of organizations are upgrading their infrastructure, as evidenced by the increasing shift from Microsoft Windows to Linux and a notable decline in Oracle database usage since 2013. This trend, documented by Gartner data (State of the Open-Source DBMS Market 2018), highlights a broader movement toward cloud modernization. The cloud offers unparalleled agility, cost savings, and scalability. With AWS, businesses experience not only enhanced agility and reduced costs, but also faster innovation, improved performance, and increased reliability. AWS provides a wide range of solutions for organizations aiming to modernize, whether that means transitioning from mainframes, moving from Windows to Linux, or adopting non-relational databases.
In this blog series on modernization, we will share stories of customers who have reaped the benefits of modernization, showcasing the advantages of moving away from legacy technologies and outdated licensing practices.
Breaking Free from High Lock-In and Punitive Licensing
Cost is often a primary concern when discussing cloud options, and it is fundamentally influenced by how vendors structure their pricing. AWS allows customers to convert capital expenses into variable expenses, enabling them to pay only for what they consume while enjoying superior performance and reliability. Additionally, AWS has implemented 76 price reductions since its inception, and our economies of scale allow us to deliver cloud services more efficiently than traditional vendors. For instance, Dow Jones estimates that migrating to AWS will result in a global savings of $100 million in infrastructure costs.
In contrast, established vendors like Oracle impose complex licensing strategies to keep customers locked in, particularly concerning their databases. Many customers have expressed frustration with the costly and restrictive licensing terms from older database providers like Oracle and Microsoft. Although these vendors may offer cloud solutions, their reliance on lock-in tactics raises concerns about their competitiveness in a fair cloud environment. For example, Oracle’s recent policy effectively doubled the number of licenses necessary for customers wishing to stay on AWS or another preferred cloud. One customer shared their disappointment when Oracle indicated that while they could stop using a product under their support contract, their support costs would not decrease. This isn’t a true cloud solution.
Similarly, Microsoft has modified Windows Server licensing to restrict customer options and raise prices for other cloud services, making it harder for customers to migrate freely. In contrast, AWS consistently innovates to enhance the customer experience. Recently, we introduced the AWS Launch Wizard to streamline SQL Server deployment with high availability, and we have improved the user experience for Dedicated Hosts. AWS License Manager simplifies license management for AWS and on-premises servers from software vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle.
Embracing Freedom through Modernization with AWS
At AWS, we firmly believe that cloud computing should be different, yet many customers are hesitant to abandon familiar technologies. For those looking to transition Microsoft and Oracle workloads to the cloud, we have dedicated over a decade to making AWS the optimal cloud platform for these workloads, significantly outpacing other providers. As we often say, there is no replacement for experience, and our long-standing record of innovation has earned the trust of customers with their most critical workloads. For instance, AWS was the first major cloud provider to offer Windows Server instances back in 2008, and today, numerous organizations, including Adobe, Autodesk, Capital One, General Electric, Hess, Kaplan, Pitney Bowes, Riot Games, and Siemens, rely on AWS for essential Windows applications such as Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, Active Directory, and Dynamics. According to IDC analysis, migrating Windows workloads to AWS can result in a 56% reduction in operational costs over five years and a remarkable 442% increase in ROI during the same period.
However, modernization is more than just relocating workloads to the cloud. It often necessitates a transformation of those workloads. Our long-standing support for open source software, such as Linux and MySQL, stems from our belief that open source communities facilitate rapid feature development without locking customers into outdated vendor contracts. In recent years, open source software has become a leader in innovation, with modern big data technologies primarily being open source (e.g., Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark), and Linux containers introduced well before Windows containers. Relying on Windows exposes customers to unpredictable pricing and licensing changes imposed by Microsoft, while offering limited innovation. AWS takes a different approach by actively supporting open source software, granting you the freedom to run your workloads as needed—whether managed, self-managed, or serverless.
Let’s examine two customer cases that highlight these advantages.
Enhanced Performance and Cost Efficiency
A leading provider in the media and entertainment sector, MediaVision, opted to transition its Windows-based Content Management System (CMS) and Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution from an on-premises data center to the AWS cloud. For years, MediaVision faced challenges scaling its Windows applications to accommodate growing user traffic. By migrating to AWS, the company gained improved flexibility and scalability.
By leveraging services like Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and Amazon EC2 Spot instances, MediaVision expanded its Windows applications globally, shortened its time-to-market, and significantly reduced costs associated with its digital media supply chain services. “We have decreased our support costs for digital media supply chain services by 70 percent using AWS resources like Amazon EC2 Spot Instances,” stated MediaVision’s Chief Technology Officer, Alex Roberts. “This allows us to offer more competitive pricing globally.” Beyond cost savings, Roberts emphasized the value to customers: “Our shift to AWS from a previous solution based on Azure has been transformative. Going fully cloud-native not only lowered our video processing costs and reduced idle hardware but also enabled our service to scale rapidly and enhance performance and availability.”
Looking ahead, MediaVision is adopting a more platform-agnostic strategy. While they currently utilize products originally developed on Microsoft .NET and SQL Server on AWS, they are exploring open source options like Linux, managed database solutions like Amazon RDS, and other open source databases, such as Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL and MySQL.
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