AWS License Manager makes it easier and seamless for you to bring your existing 3rd party software licenses to the AWS cloud to reduce your licensing costs. AWS License Manager offers a one-stop solution for managing licenses from a variety of software vendors such as Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and SAP. It enables you to capture licensing rules and track their usage across multiple AWS accounts and on-premise environments. I was embedded with the product team to develop the product over the course of several months.
The day-to-day team was comprised of myself as the UX designer, the product manager, and lead developer. Our product was launched in Novemeber 2018, and you can visit the page at the AWS website here
AWS License Manager
THE ISSUE
Software license tracking is a major pain point for large corporations, which are responsible for tracking usage and compliance for thousands of licenses according to their agreements with software vendors. By remaining compliant, the company is ensuring the software is not being used outside the bounds of the software agreement. For example, this means ensuring that Microsoft Office isn’t running on more than the stipulated 1000 different employee machines at once.
Companies are fined heavy penalties for usage overages. Additionally, software vendors are allowed to audit the companies license network and evaluate compliance. Audits that expose non-compliance can turn up even more heavy fines. The costs associated with managing licenses give companies a major incentive to carefully manage their software. Another problem is that users are unable to bring their third party licenses into the AWS ecosystem, impacting total cost of ownership.
Our goal was to create a AWS application that could manage licenses and reduce costs for users.
HOW License manager works
Define Licensing Rules
The customer works with the relevant stakeholders (e.g. business, compliance teams) in their organization to carefully review their enterprise agreements and create licensing rules in License Manager. Licensing rules contain settings that they configure to model the terms of their enterprise agreement.
Enforce Licensing Rules
Once the rules are created, they can apply them in a number of different ways to track license usage and compliance – they can attach them to their Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) or create launch templates.
Track Usage/Compliance
Once the rules are created and attached to the relevant deployment mechanisms, the end users in their organization can seamlessly launch AWS resources such as EC2 instances, and they can track the usage through License Manager’s built-in dashboards and reports. License Manager flags any resources that are not compliant with their rules.
Ramping up
Sketch of the License Manager ecosystem
One of the most challenging parts of the project was right at the beginning. I had inherited the project that had already been loosely defined through several screens by a previous designer before I was brought on. Being my first cloud project, I needed to quickly integrate myself on the team with those who are familiar with the products and processes of amazon. I had a short time to learn and understand the core concepts I would need to contirbute to this project.
AWS and License Manager terminology
Cloud computing fundamentals
The backend system for License Manager and how it works
Amazon design and review processes
The Polaris design system and its limitations
Cross-referenced features and data from other AWS products
Initial Process & SCOPE
User Flows
Because of the complexity of the product, most of the initial strategic definition was done collaboratively with stakeholders in meetings. The basic needs for the product were defined by the product owner.
Onboarding product detail page
Set up page
Dashboard
Add license configuration
Edit license configuration
Associate AMI
Discover 3rd party software
UNDERSTANDING USERS
Users were determined by prior AWS research and calls with customers. From there, we specified the ways we envision the user would interact with the License Manager.
I elaborated upon different core competencies each user would have, as well as their goals for this product to help guide the concept.
User flows
The culmination of the product and persona exploration were the user flows. We determined the key use cases for each persona, and I created these flows to align the entire team and leadership. The iconography mapped to the Amazon design system and allowed stakeholders to follow along and understand the structure of each page.
Designing
Amazon follows a very strict design system referred to as Polaris. A key challenge with the product was managing the needs of the product owner with the inherent limitations of this design system. I was simultaneously an advocate for the user, the product, and the design system. I learned when to push design leadership for customization outside the design system, and alternatively, when to push back on stakeholders to manage level of effort.
MANAGE LICENSE CONFIGURATIONS
This table displays all the different rules that the license manager has created to proactively control license usage
CREATE LICENSE CONFIGURATION
The user can create more rules by going through the create license configuration
LICENSE CONFIGURATION DETAILS
The configuration details show software license consumption associated with that rule
CLOUD DISCOVERY
The discovery page lets users locate and import third party software licenses to manage with AWS License Manager
Dashboard
One the key experiences and differentiators for license manager is the dashboard. It is a centralized location for the manager to track usage of licenses, and configure it to their needs. The dashboard required many custom design elements, and this presented one of the biggest challenges in receiving final approval.
ITERATION
ITERATION
FINAL
Project Takeaways
PUSHING BACK
Knowing when and how to push back. Different stakeholders need different kinds of information to inform their decision making. I learned that over time, there was less design freedom than I initially anticipated. I had to understand when it was worth to advocate for my idea, and when to let it go.
ADVOCATE FOR MORE COMMUNICATION
I learned in a complex company such as Amazon, key stakeholders have multiple projects at once. Making sure I am constantly pushing the lines of communication to get feedback is critical. Also, complex projects will require lots of level-setting with stakeholders to get buy-in for a simple idea.
PROJECT STRUCTURE
While Amazon followed an agile structure, there were other things to take into consideration. Each sprint contained multiple (separate) meetings to get sign off for the functionality and design. Additionally, there were pre-check meetings to make sure you were ready for the main meeting. In short, I learned that I had to make my time designing count.