Australia’s largest electricity distributor strengthens cybersecurity and compliance while reducing Java vulnerabilities by 99%

Azul, the only company 100% focused on Java, today announced that Ausgrid, Australia’s largest electricity distributor, has eliminated Oracle Java audit exposure and reduced potential Java licensing costs by 80% after migrating to Azul Platform Core. The migration, completed in just two months, also reduced Java-related vulnerabilities by 99% across Ausgrid’s IT environment.

Ausgrid distributes energy to more than 1.8 million homes and businesses across Sydney, the Central Coast and Hunter regions of New South Wales. The company’s 4,000 employees rely on hundreds of applications to deliver these crucial services; some of these applications are managed by teams outside of the technology team.

Ausgrid Solved Audit Anxiety, Security Gaps and Rising Costs All at Once

During a Windows 11 upgrade project, Ausgrid’s technology team discovered that some of the applications managed by non-technology teams were dependent on various versions of Oracle Java. The timing of this discovery coincided with Oracle’s 2023 shift from an instance-based license subscription model, to one based on total employee headcount — a change that dramatically increased potential licensing exposure for organizations worldwide.

Under Oracle’s new model, any single use of Oracle Java could trigger a company-wide fee for every employee, contractor or consultant, regardless of whether they used a company device. For Ausgrid, this could have translated into more than $500,000 per year in potential licensing costs.

“Oracle’s license subscription model was very aggressive, and I was aware of their ability to move the goalposts again at any time,” said Glen Parker, senior partner solutions manager at Ausgrid. “This represented a risk we simply weren’t willing to carry forward.”

In addition to the financial concerns, Oracle Java was identified as a significant contributor to Ausgrid’s overall volume of cyber security vulnerabilities. With these concerns in mind, Ausgrid sought a solution which would address both the commercial and the cyber concerns at the same time – ensuring license compliance (eliminating audit concerns) while minimizing the associated cost, and addressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities, without disrupting operations.

Proof-of-Concept Deployments Validated Seamless, Secure Migration to Azul Platform Core

One of Ausgrid’s technology partners recommended Azul Platform Core as a secure and compatible alternative to Oracle Java. To validate compatibility, Azul conducted three proof-of-concept (POC) deployments across Ausgrid’s applications and device environments.

“The Azul Platform Core POCs gave us confidence that migrating to an OpenJDK alternative was the right approach,” said Parker. “We saw first-hand that moving off Oracle Java wouldn’t cause any disruption, which was an important milestone in our evaluation. In addition, we were able to reduce our large volume of outstanding Java-related vulnerabilities by 99%. With Azul Platform Core, we now have a modern, well-supported Java platform with clear, predictable licensing — and the confidence of knowing we’ll be covered in the event Oracle comes knocking to perform an audit of our Java usage.”

The full migration was completed in just two months, preserving application stability throughout the transition while resolving both compliance and security concerns.

“Ausgrid’s proactive approach shows how critical it is for enterprises to address Java licensing and security risks before they become compliance crises,” said Dean Vaughan, vice president of APAC at Azul. “By moving to Azul Platform Core, Ausgrid successfully eliminated three significant business issues in one initiative: audit anxiety, substantial and unplanned license costs, and associated cyber security vulnerabilities.”

Learn more about Azul Platform Core here.

About Azul

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Azul provides the Java platform for the modern cloud enterprise. Azul is the only company 100% focused on Java. Millions of Java developers, hundreds of millions of devices and the world’s most highly regarded businesses trust Azul to power their applications with exceptional capabilities, performance, security, value, and success. Azul customers include 36% of the Fortune 100, 50% of Forbes top 10 World’s Most Valuable Brands, 10 of the world’s top 10 banks, and leading brands like Avaya, Bazaarvoice, BMW, Deutsche Telekom, LG, Mastercard, Mizuho, Priceline, Salesforce, Software AG and Workday. Learn more at azul.com and follow us @azulsystems.

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Australia’s largest electricity distributor strengthens cybersecurity and compliance while reducing Java vulnerabilities by 99%