License Mobility – Move Your Licenses to the Cloud   

Microsoft has today announced the ability for customers with Software Assurance to move those licenses to the cloud. The enhancements to the SA program give customers with any of the following servers;

• Exchange
• SQL
• Lync
• SharePoint
• System Centre
• Dynamics CRM

The ability to move these workloads to the cloud, using an SPLA provider (such as Citric Technology) without incurring additional licensing costs. Called "License Mobility", the enhancement ensures that an existing investment in licensing is not lost when moving to the cloud. In essence, Software Assurance gives you the flexibility to decide whether to deploy in-house or on-cloud at any time. The same applies if ever the need arises to move back from on-cloud to in-house – giving customers extra peace of mind when trying cloud services for the first time (using the 90-day license movement policy)

The enhancement comes into effect from the 1^st July 2011, applying to all new and existing Software Assurance agreements. For further details on SPLA, licensing and cloud solutions, please contact Citric. For more details on the license mobility enhancement to Software Assurance, please see the Microsoft announcement here.