Appian Licensing for On-Premise to Cloud migration

Question

Hello All, 
 We are evaluating for a move from On-Premise hosting to Cloud hosting. This is not Appian cloud, but rather having the current on-premise installation to be installed on Cloud. the present Appian version is 17.2 and we plan to keep the same for the Cloud installation. 
 Can anyone guide me on 
 1. how the licensing will work when we move to cloud setup? do we have to change the existing licensing which is for On-Prem application? 
 2. We have few custom plugins, how can we identify if they are cloud compatible or not? 
 3. are there any other areas of concern to look for better evaluation. 
 
 Thanks!

ericg329 · Accepted Answer

Since you aren't using Appian Cloud, some of the answers above are potentially misleading. Bring Your Own Key is only relevant to Appian Cloud. The same is true with "Cloud Approved" plugins. That approval is specific to the Appian Cloud PaaS and is not directly related to your IaaS cloud plans. 
 
1. You will need new license files as you will be changing servers. All you need to do is request new licenses through support once you have the server information available. 
 
2. Plugin compatibility has nothing to do with your IaaS setup. As long as your infrastructure is setup to allow the plugins to function as they would on-premise then you are fine. Appian Cloud does not allow certain plugin functionality as it would be a potential conflict for the PaaS offering. For example, a plugin that is allowed to access and modify files on the Appian Cloud servers would be an issue for the PaaS security configuration and would not be "Cloud Approved". If you run that same plugin on your own IaaS cloud your security team may be okay with that level of sever interaction. 
 
3. You are basically just moving to a new server. The same preparation and validation should be taken into account for shifting to Iaas (i.e. infrastructure, network, security, data migration, etc).

aloks0189 · Answer

Hi himanshun 
 
Please find the response about what you have asked mention below: 
 
1. I believe you need to go through this url: docs.appian.com/.../byok.html to understand about the cloud installation and the licensing. 
 
2. If you have downloaded these plugins from forum, you can find the details about whether this plugin is cloud approved or not under summary view of record(Shared component). 
But if you are the one who Developed this plugin, then you won't have cloud support unless you hand it over to Appian and they verify whether this plugin is eligible for cloud based infrastructure and approve the same . 
 
3. I believe you need to understand about the prerequisites prior to moving your Appian to cloud. Also need to take care of the plugins which is required for your existing projects / objects (currently available on premise).

I hope this will help.

Sandeep Deshmukh · Answer

Hi himanshun , 
1) I think you can use same licence as well, Depends on your licence type. It is mentioned "Long-term license files are valid for an extended period of time and can only be used on the server that they were requested for." 
 docs.appian.com/.../Requesting_and_Installing_a_license.html 
 
2) On plugins, as mentioned by Alok, you need to check on forum for shared plugin. But if it not Appian cloud then you can deploy any of the plugin whether it is Appian cloud approved or not. But not recommended. 
 
3) Please confirm your infra architecture, whether you are going with distributed System or Single server. And it would be good if you can check for Load balance as well. 
 
Thanks, 
Sandeep