Does Your Escrow Portfolio Still Match Your Requirements?

Many businesses utilise Software Escrow to protect their key licensed software applications, recognising the criticality and importance of these applications to their businesses, and understanding that securing access to them protects the future continuity of their organisation.

However, many businesses still fail to update protections in line with major changes to their software estate.

As the importance of the various software applications your business uses grows and diminishes over time, your Escrow coverage to protect these key applications should also evolve accordingly.

To ensure that you have the correct level of Escrow coverage in place and that your application portfolio is effectively secured, we would advise that you consider the following questions.

1. Do you protect your most critical applications with Escrow?

In our experience, Escrow protection should be a core aspect of any businesses continuity plans, as it protects your critical software applications against the threat of vendor failure.

2. Do you perform Validation Testing on your most critical applications?

SES would always advise that you perform Validation Testing on your most critical applications. Validation Testing ensures that the source code deposit placed in Escrow is complete, accurate and can be effectively redeployed in the event of a release.

3. Is Escrow part of your discussions when procuring new software applications?

It is our view that Software Escrow should always be part of negotiations when procuring new software applications, especially if those applications are bespoke, revenue generating, highly customised or business critical. Software Escrow protects your investments in these applications and ensures that in the event of vendor failure you can continue to use the application to the point a suitable replacement is procured.

4. Are your SaaS applications protected with Escrow and do you have the correct protection?

For organisations using SaaS applications, SES have created an industry leading SaaS

Escrow solution. This solution relies on taking regular backups of your applications data and stores these alongside a copy of the applications source code in Escrow.

This protects against the sudden withdrawal of access to your application and data when using SaaS applications.

If a release clause were to be triggered, all material required for the successful redeployment of the application including the most recent copy of your applications data can be accessed through the Escrow agreement, guarding against service disruption and providing continuity of service.

5. Is the knowledge to deploy the application in a release event captured under your coverage?

As many organisations do not posses the in-house knowledge to deploy applications in the event of a release, SES have developed advanced validation options which involve an SES testing consultant witnessing, recording and documenting a full rebuild of the application on your environment.

The full audio/ visual recording of the build process, alongside the build manual are stored alongside the source code in Escrow and will be released back to you if a release clause is triggered. This ensures that you can swiftly and effectively redeploy your application and minimise down time.

If you have concerns about your Software Escrow coverage and would like to discuss your Software Escrow portfolio in more detail, please get in touch and one of our specialists will get back to you within one business day. 

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