LicenseGuard: Cost‑Aware CDC and Query Offload Gateway

Legal & Professional Services
🔥
9/10
Demand Score
Impending license true‑ups and growing BI/ETL demand threaten budget overruns and integration slowdowns.
🌊
8/10
Blue Ocean
Competition Level
💰
$3k-25k
Price/Month
Predicted customer spend
⏱️
12 days
Time to MVP
Difficulty: Hard

The Problem

LicenseGuard reduces ERP database licensing and integration costs by offloading reads and ETL to a license‑neutral replica. It captures changes from Oracle/SQL Server/DB2/HANA via log‑based CDC, maint

Competitor Landscape

  • Qlik Replicate (Attunity)
  • Oracle GoldenGate
  • HVR (Fivetran)
  • Informatica
  • Debezium
  • Matillion
  • Hevo

Must-Have Features for MVP

Log‑based CDC for major ERPs’ databases
Consistent snapshot and backfill with schema drift handling
Cost policy engine and query proxy for BI/ETL tools
Materialized views and columnar acceleration on replicas
Data masking/anonymization and role‑based access
Audit and savings reports with what‑if simulations

⚠️ Potential Challenges

  • Complex vendor license terms and audits
  • Ensuring transactional consistency snapshots
  • Network throughput and CDC lag
  • Change freezes around financial close

Risk Level: Moderate

🎯 Keys to Success

  • >60% of BI traffic offloaded in 60 days
  • Measured reduction in license exposure or true‑ups
  • <5 min data latency for priority tables
  • No user changes required in BI tools (transparent proxy)
  • Positive audit outcomes with complete lineage and access logs

Ready to Build This?

This hard-difficulty project could be your next micro-SaaS success.