SQL Server licensing is a maze. Enterprises routinely overspend 20–40%.

Who it is for

Enterprises with a significant SQL Server footprint — on-prem, virtualized, or in Azure — facing a true-up, a renewal, or an audit letter, and suspecting they are paying more than they should.

The problem it solves

SQL Server licensing rules reward the people who read them: core vs. CAL modeling, Software Assurance benefits left on the table, virtualization and HA licensing as the most common overspend area. Without a specialist inventory, you renew what you bought years ago — at full price.

What's included

• Full license and deployment inventory: editions, cores, VMs, hosts, containers, cloud instances
• Core vs. CAL model analysis — which model each workload should be on
• Software Assurance benefits audit: are you paying for SA you're not using, or missing benefits you've paid for?
• Virtualization and high-availability licensing review (the most common overspend area)
• Azure Hybrid Benefit eligibility and cloud-migration licensing impact
• True-up and audit-risk assessment with remediation priorities
• Written optimization roadmap with a verified annual savings estimate

Deliverables

• Complete license and deployment inventory, documented
• Core vs. CAL, Software Assurance, virtualization/HA, and Azure Hybrid Benefit findings
• True-up and audit-risk assessment with remediation priorities
• Written optimization roadmap with a verified annual savings estimate
• Read-out session with your team

Typical duration

One to two weeks, remote. Deployment inventory in the first days; analysis and the savings roadmap after. Explicitly not included: legal counsel on licensing disputes (this is technical analysis, not legal advice), license procurement or reselling, or executing a migration.

What happens afterward

The review's output is either optimize the licenses or escape them: the savings number leads into a Database Migration Assessment when the math says migrate to PostgreSQL instead of renewing, or into FinOps work when it says stay.

Start free, then go deep

Our free SQL Server→PostgreSQL migration pack covers the escape route in full. This engagement is the next level: we inventory your actual estate and show you, in numbers, whether to optimize or migrate.