Change DLM licencing
Please re-visit and change your stupid, ill thought, money grabbing licencing on DLM Automation.
Having licenced SQL CI coupled and individual SQL Source Control licences all with maintenance on advice of Redgate sales we've been merrily using this until now. Needing to buy additional licences for SQL Source Control we are now hit with an eye watering quote to have to upgrade from SQL CI to DLM automation.
Apart from the fact that the product recommended to us originally has been superseded twice with no contact from Redgate, there has been a sneaky shift to a per user licence fro DLM automation. So what was an expensive server licenced product in SQL CI has now become a per developer licenced product in DLM Automation. Any developer who contributes to SQL changes deployed through DLM automation now requires a licence. The only way to obtain a licence is to buy a full SQL Toolbelt.
The result of this means our initial outlay of the licences for SQL Source Control and SQL CI now has to be written off, the SQL Source control licences are worthless as we are effectively re licencing the same products at a substantially higher cost and what do we get out of it ? Nothing apart from a clear conscience.
This hasn't been thought through at all and I'm sorry to say it reeks of corporate greed.
I'd seriously question how many existing customers are correctly licenced.
Will
shared this idea
We have experimented with a number of different licensing models and the reality is that server-based licensing option did not make for a viable business.
Instead, to cover the entry level market, we now offer Flyway Community and Flyway Teams.
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Jimbo
commented
I totally agree with this comment. This seems to be a classic case of product management team totally mis-reading what the real world needs of real world development teams are.
In the current licencing scheme each developer in the team, that may make a database change to a database involved in CI using the DLM Automation tool, will have to purchase SQL Toolbelt at a retail cost of £1845 per user. In the real world most developers will use 2 (source control/DLM Automation) out of the 15 products in the bundle. Try getting that expenditure signed off! The cost/benefit will not survive scrutiny.
I'm afraid that £1800+ per developer is not competitive and indeed is not justifiable for those who want to use database CI utilizing the Redgate tools. Indeed once you go beyond 2/3 developers then the cost then starts to exceed the old deployment server licence scheme.
I'm a long term fan and user of Redgate tools but the decision regarding costing of DLM Automation makes no sense to me. -
AdminKatherine Codlin
(Admin, Redgate)
commented
Thanks you for your comments, I’ve noted these and will pass the feedback to our product management team.
It’s always difficult to choose a licensing and pricing model that works for everyone.
On this occasion we felt that if the licensing was ‘per server’ or ‘per agent’ then the appropriate cost (for the considerable benefit gained by organisations using this approach) would be too large for many of our customers to get started and setup.By licensing per user, we hope to enable organisations to start with a smaller initial outlay and then add to that as the benefit is rolled out across the wider team.
I am more than happy to discuss this in further detail, please feel free to email me at Katherine.Codlin@red-gate.com and we can set up a call.
Thank you,