Featured Article from Software Licensing

The cloud market is growing at a rapid pace, and for good reason. Enterprises are recognizing the potential for leveraging cloud-based capabilities. Now that the initial fears for migrating to the cloud have been overcome, enterprises are driving the 26 percent annual growth rate in the cloud market.

Software licensing solutions company, Flexera Software published a blog on this trend recently, highlighting the extensive growth we’re seeing in this space. The hybrid cloud, the combination of public and private cloud models, is also experiencing exceptional growth. According to Gartner (News - Alert), 50 percent of enterprises will be using the hybrid cloud by 2017.

The Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market is also expected to continue to enjoy strong growth. IDC (News - Alert) suggests a steady increase of 15 percent per year through 2019. The current market leader in this space is Amazon Web Services (AWS) with 30 percent of the IaaS market. Microsoft (News - Alert) doesn’t generally like to be outdone, however, and it’s Azure product is making its way towards challenging that leadership spot.

This movement and growth is an important focus in the software licensing space as it points to vulnerabilities enterprises may be experiencing due to a rapidly shifting infrastructure. In a report published this year, Gartner recommended that IT leaders broaden their scope of software asset management to include Software as a Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) and management of cloud infrastructure. This is critical to protect current investments and to demonstrate due diligence in the proper management of data.

Likewise, the move to services in the cloud typically means that the enterprise is moving some of its on-premises software to the cloud. Proper software licensing means the management of license compliance for that software. Rules and regulations still apply across the board when working with intellectual data and enterprises not only need to follow the rules, they also have to be sure they are up-to-date to protect business processes.

The reality is that cloud migration, once adopted as a viable option for the enterprise, is an easy transition in terms of purchasing. One click of a button and you have access to considerable capabilities. While this is great access, it also means the creation of “shadow IT”, which is a big problem for some organizations.

In these scenarios, departments and users are avoiding proper channels through IT and securing their own devices and apps, creating vulnerabilities at every turn. Having the right policies in place to support software licensing requirements is a great first step towards avoiding unnecessary problems.