With the advancement of technology and especially cloud computing (Microsoft Azure or AWS), all companies use some type of software to ensure the improvement of their operations and processes. In this way, even those who are not used to the technology were forced to adopt it, at the risk, if they didn't, of falling behind and losing market share.
Many organizations, because they do not have an asset management process or software inventory, use some software illegally, without a license. With this, these companies infringe the right to intellectual property of Microsoft licenses.
Because of this, they can be severely penalized with fines and even compromise the security of information and the entire information technology area of the company. Not to mention that they may be liable for a crime, as it is the company's duty to make sure that it is acting within the normal limits of Microsoft's licensing agreements.
In this sense, a measure that has been adopted to combat this practice is Microsoft Audits. Find out what it is, how it impacts IT professionals and understand its importance to your business, following the reading!
What is Microsoft Audit?
The Microsoft Audit is the process by which an in-depth analysis of all computers and other devices of a company's installed software is sought, in order to verify if it is using the software legally, that is, in a manner that respects rights related to intellectual property.
This is because it can happen, for example, that a company buys Microsoft software without realizing that they are pirated (or without original licenses) and that they can, therefore, compromise IT governance or software governance.
In practice, a compliance team or even the Microsoft audit team asks the company to survey all devices that have some Microsoft software and then ask for invoices and software licenses to prove the purchase of the products. The idea with this is to verify that the company is using software in the correct amount and has the authorization licenses for the use of Microsoft products.
What are the Microsoft Audit steps?
In summary, Microsoft's Audit steps, or as they call it SAM review, basically consist of:
- Survey of all software used by the brand
- Proof of licenses or verification of licenses by sending invoice to Microsoft
- Review of what is being used versus what has been acquired (life cycles)
- Acquisition of licenses or missing licenses, if it is identified that the company is using products illegally. For example buy 10 licenses of Microsoft Windows Server operating systems.
How important are Software Audits to your business?
The Software Audit process is important because it not only prevents your company from suffering fines and criminal sanctions, but also putting your data in danger or in the hands of unauthorized people who can do what they see fit with the observed information.
How do I settle my software license GAP?
Software manufacturers such as Oracle and Microsoft are focusing very heavily on Cloud Computing, launching various SaaS, PaaS and IaaS products in clouds such as Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure
If you need to regularize Office, Exchange, Sharepoint, Windows Server or SQL, consider migrating to products like Office 365 and Microsoft Azure.
How to have accurate and complete control of software inventory:
IT governance can look at existing CMDBs, install software or hardware asset solutions and will conclude that the focus should be on automating the inventory reconciliation process, taking into account the rights of each software and its contracts, or even move to optimization, where license consumption is optimized.
But in fact, the lack of an accurate software inventory means that the organization's SAM maturity is built on an unstable foundation.
A reliable way to collect application evidence (installation evidence and where necessary, log data such as keys and usage) and to correctly recognize installed software is critical to improving application processes. SAM in the company.
Manual reporting by application owners is typically not scalable and, more importantly, typically cannot be used as the basis for any kind of automated software license optimization process.
Additionally, many software vendors in an audit situation, such as a Microsoft Audits, will have an expectation of automated software inventory collection and not just using active directory data.
On the following links, you can learn more about software manufacturers' licensing programs: Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, IBM and Autodesk.
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Tag: IT Marketplace, Microsoft License, Audit Notification, Compliance Process, Microsoft Compliance, Purchasing Process, Microsoft Certified Partner, Software Assets, Software Asset Management, Software Asset Management.