As the shift from on premise/hosted solutions to the public cloud continues, so does the complexity of the licensing. As an example, in a recent engagement, a provider faced difficulty in determining which licenses his customers were eligible to migrate to a public cloud and which ones had to be relicensed. They were also under the pressure of a SPLA audit. Here’s what we uncovered:

1. No proper way to track licenses. They did not have a tool or SAM process. SPLA reporting should be used as business intelligence into what is happening in your environment, not just a requirement by Microsoft.
2. They had Office 365 license deployed on shared hardware.
3. Software Assurance was not offered to their clients.
4. They were paying a premium for their licenses over what others were paying based on reseller costs.
5. They purchased Office 365 through the portal out of convenience.
6. They owed over 2.4 million (USD) for licenses. We reduced to 150k (USD) based on licensing rules and reporting

Don’t be this provider!

If you are faced with an audit, it is important to not go through it alone.  Your plan should include ways to reduce your risk before it becomes a risk.  Our licensing experts will review your data, understand the risk, and put together a strategy to reduce exposure and path moving forward.

If you are going through an audit or want to reduce your SPLA reporting, please reach out to us to discuss our strategy.  We are independent and work for you, not the vendor. You can email info@splalicensing.com or directly at blaforge@splalciensing.com

Thanks for reading!

SPLA Man