The document outlines strategic changes at WSO2 aimed at enhancing cloud adoption and support for partners, highlighting the introduction of a unified subscription model and updates management for better service delivery. Key points include the restructuring of engineering for cloud-first development, aligning support with subscription terms, and implementing pricing adjustments for both new and transitioning customers. The changes are designed to simplify interactions between WSO2 and partners while promoting more accessible and efficient service offerings.

1. Positioning WSO2 for Quicker Uptake
Jonathan Marsh
VP Strategy
WSO2

2. What to expect
• Cohesive summary of interlocking changes and why we made
them
• How we position these changes (and you can too)
• Impacts on partners of these changes
• Plenty of Q&A
Cloud WUM
Unified
subscription
model
Price
revisions

4. Positioning Cloud
• Cloud is attractive to many customers
– Lower entry point for low volume, low complexity scenarios
– Lower costs of management, infrastructure, maintenance
– Scalability built-in
– Fine-grained “pay as you go”
• Please promote where it’s appropriate!
– Commissions will apply (figuring out how best to do this now)
– Use free trials – 2 week period is extensible

5. Cloud “side effects”
• WSO2 Cloud needs to be a first-class citizen
– Cannot take weeks to test and deploy new OS features
– Cannot allow a release that isn’t stable enough to use on WSO2
Cloud
• Reorganize engineering for cloud-first development
– Continuous improvements (updates) into cloud
– Systematic deployment (all updates, in order) to simplify testing
– Periodically cut an OS release
– Implies “Updates as a Service” -> WSO2 Update

6. WSO2 Update & WSO2 Update Manager
Old
Patches and service packs
Free non-prod use
Licensed for production use only by
subscribers
Available on request (after relevant issue was
found) through private support account
Installed piecemeal – difficult QA problem
New
Updates
Free non-prod use
Licensed for production use only by
subscribers
Continuously and publicly available through
WUM, requiring free registration
Installed in sequence for higher reliability

7. WUM “side effects”
• Update distribution no longer private (remove first line of defense)
• Embedded license (new first line of defense)
• Removed separate license in Subscription agreement, now we “activate”
production features of WSO2 Update License by defining “SUBSCRIBED
PRODUCTS”
• Which in turn illustrated a misalignment between “supported instances” and
“licensed instances”
– Need to record all instances receiving Updates in the subscription to provide
clear license chain
– Revealed we were not clear about support on some instances, i.e pre-prod
– To assist tracking, we assigned a (low) price to formerly free instances (profiles,
pre-prod, passive)

8. Positioning WSO2 Updates
• Preventative maintenance through continual access to updates
• Use WUM to download the product in the first place
– Avoid issues during eval that are already fixed
• No change in ability to use for free:
– Track OS releases
– But you also can use WSO2 Updates during development to see if a
future OS release will solve an issue

9. Subscription & license
• WSO2 Subscription
– WSO2 Update license
– Prod Support
– (optional) Dev Support
– (optional) Managed Cloud support
• Implies a need to align license term and support term
• Subscription term starts when your support account opens (no matter what
kind of support you need)
– Add your pre-prod environments early in the cycle to get support - in some
cases from day one
– You can top up your subscription when you need more support with fees
prorated to the term

10. Unified Support Subscription
• A-la-carte support model (Dev, Prod) was breaking down at scale:
– Separate support accounts hard to manage and lost context
– High sales cost and customer annoyance with random Dev Support
expiration dates unsynchronized with production support subscription
– Customer annoyance with expiring unused hours
– Complex rollover rules
– Subject to abuse – hard to distinguish between a “Query” on a
production system and a Dev Support request.
– Reality is that Dev-type questions are always needed, even on stable
prod systems
– Increasing maturity of margin analysis revealed the scale of “abuse”

11. Unified Support
• One support account for all issues – production incidents, dev support
queries, managed cloud hosting matters.
• “Side effects”:
– Define a base one year support subscription term
• All Dev Support aligns with that subscription term
• All Prod Support aligns with that subscription term
• Tradeoff: eliminate overlapping terms but use more proration
– Provide some level of Dev Support throughout the subscription lifetime
• Built-in, based on spend
• Retain the ability to increase the limit for a fee
– Losing much of our independent Dev Support revenue
• Offsets our price increase

12. Proration example
Included Dev Support
Dev environment
Staging environment
Prod environment
Included Dev Support
Dev environment
Staging environment
Development Support top up
Included Dev Support
Prod environment
Subscription Start Date Renewal Date
Prod expansion

13. Partner implications
• Dev Support is scoped to a project:
– Questions on products in use in that customer/subscription
– Questions on products under eval or development for that project
• Not to be shared across accounts, or distinct projects within an
account
• If you need support across projects it’s ok to buy a Dev Support only
subscription for general use
– Even easier now with 10 hour incremental annual packages
• If you need to realign the subscription term with budget cycles we can
do that (hopefully on a one-time basis)

14. Subscription side effect on partners
License is between WSO2 and Subscriber – how does a third party fit in?
• Scenario 1: Partner does services, facilitates subscription through
direct contract between WSO2 and Customer
• Scenario 2: Partner includes subscription in a service offering (e.g. a
managed project). Subscription is between Partner and WSO2,
customer isn’t a party to the license but just consumes the managed
services (as a black box.)
• Scenario 3: Partner and Customer sign agreement – need to special
case this with WSO2 to grant license to Customer. Come talk to us!

15. Positioning pricing
New customers
• Prod instances
– includes passive (warm)
– profiles at modest cost
• Pre-prod instances @ 25% of
normal fees
• Additional dev support available in
fine-grained packages (10 hours)
Transitioning customers
• Service improvements
– Included Dev Support
– 24x7 SLA on pre-prod shared
environments
• Some grandfathering is possible
– Show benefits of moving to new
model/support structure
– Where this represents a hardship, willing
to negotiate a price between current
spend + inflation + exchange and new
retail price
• Worst case: maintain old structure
for stubborn customers

16. Q&A

17. Thank You!