Road to WPC 2016: Software and workload insights deliver game changing opportunities for optimisation

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To build on the story earlier this week in the “Road to WPC” partner profile series, we take a closer look at the solution they delivered for the Western Australia’s Housing Authority.

Software Optimisation Services’ (SOS) innovative team sets a high standard in combining energy, passion, and long term customer value through every Microsoft Software Asset Management engagement. This unique set of qualifications and innovative approach, created the winning criteria for SOS to take top honours in the Software Asset Management (SAM) category for Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner awards.

Western Australia’s Housing Authority performs an important role providing affordable housing for the State’s residents.

Richard Barry is the Chief Information Officer for the Authority, charged with providing the IT systems that underpin its operations. At a time when WA is facing budgetary constraints Barry wants to ensure that the Authority not only has a robust and reliable environment, but that its licence agreements are appropriate, and that any risks that might arise from shadow IT deployments or aging platforms are identified and appropriately managed.

The trigger for a software asset management review came from Richard wanting to optimise software licences deployed across hundreds of servers both on-premise and in a cloud environment. Barry commissioned Preston and her SOS team to work with him, initially on a 90 day proof of concept basis, and then more broadly to conduct a systems audit that would provide him with a line in the sand, and a clear understanding of what was currently deployed and in use – and identify any risks and vulnerabilities, and opportunities for improvement.

Using the Azure-based Movere platform, Filipa Preston conducted a Microsoft software review and began also to map potential workloads that could move to Azure across the Authority. Matching actual software inventory against the Microsoft licence statement identified surpluses which were addressed, delivering savings to the Authority.

The insights afforded Richard the opportunity to refresh the information ecosystem based on a much sharper understanding of the deployed assets.

Leveraging SQL Workloads SAM Engagement, Filipa and Richard  reviewed the Authority’s workloads and identified SQL workloads that could be transitioned off old in house SQL databases and onto Azure SQL databases, in line with the Authority’s cloud strategy and effectively future proofing the environment. According to Movere, SOS has already helped the Authority migrate 13% of their SQL footprint into Azure.

According to Richard, “We started out with a growing licencing pain that if left unchecked would have prevented us from realising our cloud strategy. SOS armed us with the intelligence and clear guidance to turn a problem into a Platform as a service (PaaS) opportunity that will reduce our costs and the support of those services.”

“This was consultancy that goes to the heart of our business. SOS are not just compliance experts, they’re change makers.”

If you're not able to join the Australian team in Toronto for WPC 2016 next week, you can still watch the Vision Keynotes that start each day of the conference and participate in the conversation about them. Here are the details:

  • livestream of the WPC 2016 Vision Keynotes from 8:40 AM to 10:45 AM US Eastern Time on July 11, 12 and 13. If you don’t have the chance to join us live, the keynotes will be posted 24 hours after they conclude.
  • The Vision Keynotes are a topic of lively conversation on Twitter using the #wpc16 hashtag. Follow along and participate in the conversation. There are many apps that can help you follow and participate. Use your app of choice, or try Tweetchat
  • Recordings of the Vision Keynotes will be available after about 24 hours .
  • During the conference, we'll share news and announcements - look for a recap post on this blog