Understanding license agreements
License agreements are complicated, but in essence, there are three types of agreements to start using services in the public cloud:
- Consumption-based: This is often referred to as the pay-as-you-go model. The enterprise only pays for the actual usage in the public cloud, without any upfront commitment. Cloud providers issue a monthly invoice with the actual consumption of resources. These resources—for example, virtual machines, database instances, and storage units—are charged against the rates that are published on the public portals of the providers.
- Commitment-based: For most enterprises, this is the preferred model. In this case, the enterprise commits to the usage of a specific amount of resources in the cloud for a longer period of time, typically 1, 3, or 5 years. Now, public clouds such as Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud Platform were invented to enable maximum flexibility and agility. If we allow enterprises to have...
