According to the Government Accountability Office, restrictive software licensing practices impact multiple federal agencies in the form of cost increases and limited choices in cloud service providers (CSP) or cloud architecture.
The Department of Justice, NASA, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Veterans all told the GAO that as a result of restrictive software licensing practices, the agencies experienced or expected cost increases in procurement, infrastructure, and licensing. The Social Security Administration, NASA and DOJ have each identified issues related to their choice of CSP or architecture as a result of the practice, the watchdog noted, while the Office of Personnel Management has not encountered these restrictive practices when managing cloud computing efforts and policies. one provider for services.
The GAO said in its report that DOJ, NASA, SSA, VA and DOT “took specific actions that may have limited their exposure to potential impacts of restrictive practices,” including entering into enterprise-wide cloud contracts with multiple service providers. However, OPM’s efforts to consolidate applications and services through a single cloud provider “effectively locked itself into that cloud service provider.”
“In addition to its potential to transform agencies’ use of IT, cloud computing also poses specific challenges that may hinder agencies’ ability to realize the full benefits of cloud-based solutions,” the report said.
GAO suggested that leadership at all six agencies update the guidance to fully address how restrictive software licensing practices impact cloud computing efforts, and to assign responsibility for identifying and managing potential impacts within their respective departments and document.
In the report, GAO said that four vendors had required three agencies to buy back licenses they had already used on-premises in order to use licenses in the cloud. Additionally, two agencies reported that two vendors were charging additional fees for using their software on third-party CSP infrastructure. One agency reported that a vendor required a conversion fee to convert a local license to cloud use.
In addition, the watchdog said DOJ, NASA and SSA reported a vendor attempting to “lock down” each agency by requiring or encouraging them to use the company’s software on that same vendor’s cloud infrastructure. This happened again at one agency when a vendor involved a contractor who “migrated an agency’s data to a vendor’s cloud infrastructure, requiring the agency to pay to regain ownership of the data at the end of the contract.”
One agency told GAO that a hardware vendor providing an on-premise private cloud service “did not allow” another vendor’s software to be used on the hardware.
