What is an AWS Optimisation and Licensing Assessment?
Our AWS-funded OLA is a focused assessment designed to quantify cost and licensing opportunity. It provides an evidence-based view of potential savings and migration pathways before committing to a full assessment or migration programme. Working with CGI gives you:
- A clear picture of software licensing exposure across Microsoft, VMware, and other platforms
- Licensing optimisation opportunities (e.g. rightsizing, licence model alignment)
- High-level migration pathways based on workload characteristics
- A directional licensing cost comparison between current state and AWS
- A quantified view of potential savings to support further investment decisions
When rising licensing costs, unclear cloud spend, or infrastructure pressures are creating uncertainty, an OLA gives you a fast, evidence-based view before you invest in deeper analysis. It turns assumptions into facts, validates cost data, and gives you a clear starting point for a cloud business case.
How a cost and licensing analysis works
A structured, AWS OLA engagement focused on licensing data:
Data Collection
Week 1
Collect:
- Server inventory and configuration
- Licensing and contract data
Analysis
Weeks 2 - 3
Analyse collected data to:
- Identify overprovisioning and inefficiencies
- Assess licensing position and optimisation opportunities
- Map workloads to high-level AWS equivalents
Output
Weeks 3 - 4
Deliver:
- Licensing optimisation recommendations
- High-level migration pathways
- Estimated cost opportunity and savings range
Outcome
A quantified, data-backed view of the financial opportunity to move to AWS.
Capabilities included
OLA funding: Typically AWS-funded, removing cost as a barrier to entry
MAP funding: Available for follow-on Assess and migration phases
The OLA is designed to qualify and enable access to broader AWS migration funding.
Why work with CGI?
We provide OLA as a financial clarity step, not a technical deep dive:
- Focus on real licensing data, not assumptions
- Clear separation between initial licensing analysis (OLA) and detailed infrastructure assessment (Assess)
- Experience translating OLA outputs into funded migration programmes
- Structured approach aligned to AWS funding and migration pathways
- What is an AWS Optimisation and Licensing Assessment (OLA)?
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An AWS Optimisation and Licensing Assessment (OLA) is a funded analysis of your software licensing and environment footprint that identifies cost optimisation opportunities and estimates the financial benefit of moving to AWS. It uses actual licensing and configuration data to produce a directional savings view and migration starting point.
- What does an OLA actually assess?
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An OLA focuses on software licensing and workload footprint rather than full infrastructure discovery. It analyses licensing position (e.g. Microsoft, VMware), server inventory, and configuration data to identify optimisation opportunities and map workloads to high-level AWS equivalents.
- What is the difference between an OLA and a full cloud assessment?
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An OLA provides a fast, licensing-led view of cost opportunity using existing data. A full assessment (Assess phase) goes deeper, including architecture discovery, dependency mapping, detailed TCO modelling, and migration planning. OLA helps decide whether to proceed to that next stage.
- How accurate are OLA savings estimates?
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OLA savings are directional and based on actual licensing and configuration data rather than assumptions. They provide a reliable view of potential cost opportunity, but are not investment-grade. Detailed financial models and validated TCO are developed in the follow-on Assess phase.
- Why is licensing important in cloud cost optimisation?
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For many enterprise environments, software licensing can represent a significant portion of total cost, often exceeding infrastructure costs. Optimising licensing, such as reducing overprovisioned tiers or selecting the right licensing model, can materially improve the economics of moving to AWS.