Migration credits: $5.5M for an SAP and Oracle move.

The customer was migrating its global SAP ERP estate and its primary Oracle databases off a leased datacenter contract that was expiring in 18 months. The migration was committed; the platform decision was not. The customer's CIO had asked the cloud team to run a structured AWS-vs-Azure evaluation with full commercial terms on both sides before making the recommendation.

AWS's initial proposal was a standard EDP structure with a modest MAP credit allocation. The credit allocation was below the level the customer had achieved on a smaller pilot migration two years earlier, and the EDP discount tier did not appear to price the substantial new commit the migration represented.

What the customer needed

• A MAP credit allocation sized to the actual migration scope, not the opening proposal
• Partner-funded migration services to offset the SI cost of the SAP and Oracle moves
• A multi-year EDP structure that priced the post-migration run rate
• Workload-specific PPA overlays on SAP-relevant services and Aurora

AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) credit allocation is highly negotiable and highly opaque. The published MAP tiers are floors, not ceilings. Customers with credible alternative platforms, large workloads, and SI partner alignment routinely achieve 2-4x the published tier.

Phase 1 — Build the parallel Azure track (weeks 1-4)

We engaged Microsoft directly in parallel. The Azure team produced a full commercial proposal including Azure migration program credits, partner-funded SAP-on-Azure services, and a multi-year ACA structure. The proposal was real and was scoped for execution.

The customer's intent was genuinely undecided through this phase. The Azure proposal was not a pure leverage exercise; if it had come back materially better, the customer would have selected it.

Phase 2 — Open the AWS counter (weeks 5-7)

We presented the Azure proposal to AWS as a forecast comparison. AWS responded by escalating the negotiation to the MAP program-level approver, who is empowered to allocate above-tier funding. Over three weeks, the AWS counter improved in three steps: a doubled MAP credit allocation, partner-funded SAP migration services through an SI partner, and a workload-specific PPA overlay on Aurora and EC2 R-family instances (the SAP HANA targets).

Phase 3 — Close (weeks 8-10)

The final AWS commercial package was 38 percent better than the opening proposal in present-value terms and roughly 18 percent better than the equivalent Azure package on a like-for-like basis. The customer selected AWS. The contract closed with the upgraded MAP allocation, partner SI funding, the Aurora and EC2 PPA overlays, and a three-year EDP priced against the post-migration run rate.

The negotiated migration package produced $5.5M in directly-allocated credits and partner-funded services, plus an additional ongoing effective rate reduction through the PPA overlays. The package breaks across four buckets.

Where the savings came from

• MAP credit allocation — $3.2M in direct AWS credits applied against the first 24 months of post-migration consumption
• Partner-funded SI services — $1.4M in SAP and Oracle migration services funded by AWS through an approved SI partner
• Aurora and EC2 PPA overlays — $0.7M in modeled first-year savings from the workload-specific overlays
• EDP tier on post-migration run rate — $0.2M in present-value uplift from pricing the EDP against the full post-migration consumption rather than the pre-migration baseline

What the customer did with the savings

The MAP credits and partner services fully funded the first 18 months of the SAP migration with no incremental capital request. The Aurora and EC2 PPA overlays continue to compound through the three-year EDP term, providing recurring savings well beyond the migration period.

The Azure proposal was preserved as a benchmark. The customer is unlikely to migrate the SAP estate again any time soon, but the existence of the credible alternative shaped every term of the AWS package.