License type conversions in License Manager - AWS License Manager

License type conversions in License Manager

With License Manager, you can change your license type between AWS provided licensing and Bring Your Own License model (BYOL), or Bring your Own Subscription model (BYOS), as your business needs change. You can change your license type without redeploying your existing workloads.

You can optimize your license inventory for the following scenarios using license type conversion:

Migrate on-premises workloads to Amazon EC2

During your migration, you can deploy your workload to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and use AWS provided licenses. When the migration is complete, use License Manager license type conversion to change the license type of your instances. You can change to BYOL or BYOS so that you can use the licenses that were released during the migration.

Continue running workloads with expiring license agreements

You can use License Manager license type conversion to switch from BYOL or BYOS to AWS provided licenses. This switch allows you to continue running your workloads with fully-compliant software licenses provided by AWS with a flexible pay-as-you go licensing model. You might choose to do this if your license agreement with the operating system's software vendor, such as Microsoft or Canonical, is about to expire and you do not plan to renew it.

Optimize costs

For small or irregular workloads, AWS provided licenses (license included) instances might be more cost effective. When you choose to use BYOL or BYOS, these options might require a longer term commitment. For this case, you can use License Manager license type conversion to switch your instances to license included to optimize licensing related costs. If your instances were launched from your own virtual machine (VM) image, you can switch back to BYOL or BYOS. You might choose to do this when the workload is more steady or predictable.

Extended maintenance

If your Ubuntu operating system has reached the end of standard support, you can add a paid subscription of Ubuntu Pro. Adding a subscription to Ubuntu pro provides security updates for an extended period of time. For more information, see Ubuntu Pro in the Canonical documentation.