Some people make resolutions to lose weight, go to the gym more, and maybe give up late-night snacks; for guys like me, I want to correct licensing woes for customers and partners. Imagine not having to worry about license compliance. Imagine going through an audit and not being concerned about it. Imagine billing your customers correctly and accurately, all the while gaining profitability. When working with managed service providers or hosters, sometimes licensing gets in the way of strategy. They are so focused on the service or solution, and the licensing is an afterthought until audit time. Here’s a list of resolutions to consider reducing costs, gaining profitability, and maintaining compliance. Curious about your thoughts?

SPLA Man’s Resolution Checklist

1. SPLA reporting or any reporting should be considered business intelligence, not just a requirement by Microsoft. If you are underreporting, what that tells me is you are not charging your customers accurately either. And of course, you are also out of compliance. In essence, you are losing out on additional revenue all along and you have to pay for the licensing anyway for not reporting accurately.
2. Understand your end customer options. This is a big one for a lot of companies. In every audit engagement I have ever been a part of, the question is asked: “The licenses are my clients; I have no idea what is installed or even care.” The reality is Microsoft auditor’s care. You have to prove or provide evidence that what you are doing is accurate. No evidence? You could be on the hook. As a resolution, I would understand all the different licensing programs available for customers. Take a look at Flexible Virtualization or outsourcing scenarios. Not only can you reduce your costs but you can provide an added value for your customers. Licensing knowledge is a differentiator.
3. Understand your agreement. You are allowed 20 users per data center to access the software and not be out of compliance. There are ways you can provide testing or demonstrations without licensing costs. There is also language in the agreement about audits. What must you provide to the auditors, and what servers are you required to give them access to?
4. Have strong contractual language with your customers about who is responsible for what. AWS does a great job of this. They tell their customers “We are responsible for everything under our Microsoft agreement, but you are responsible for everything under yours.” End-customer licensing has separate terms and conditions. All the new program updates involve end-customer licensing, not SPLA. Think Flexible Virtualization, Authorized Outsourcer, CSP, etc.
5. Perform your own risk assessment. During an audit, Microsoft will perform an Effective License Position Report (ELP). This report shows everything installed and then compares it against everything you reported. It is critical to perform this assessment before an audit occurs. This is the key to resolution 1, which is mentioned above, regarding business intelligence. This report will show where you have license gaps, but also ways you can reduce your reporting. Did you know an engineer installed Visio, and ALL of your users have access? Did you know you can consolidate your SQL Server footprint significantly?

If you are interested in the above resolutions, how do you perform them? We developed a team of licensing experts, including ex-auditors who know the programs and can create this ELP report for you. It is not uncommon to find millions of dollars of risk, but our goal is to help you identify and correct the licensing gap before it becomes a risk to the auditor. If you want to learn more, email info@splalicensing.com. Together, we can make 2025 the best year ever.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man