Last updated: December 1, 2021
You know the usual horror stories about inspections. Right off the bat, I can think of stories that mainly revolve around the GEZ. The IT industry, however, knits its own horror stories. There, they are called license audits.
In theory, license audits should not be necessary. When software is used, a license is obtained from the manufacturer or its sales offices. This then authorizes regular use on the workstation. No, at the work place. Or also on the second computer? Or not at all?
The regulations as to when and to what extent licenses are required vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. At Microsoft, this science almost borders on a doctorate, and even at the manufacturer itself, you don’t always get a clear statement about the currently valid licensing behavior right away.
To make matters worse, licenses are rarely bought all at once. For example, a number of OEM Windows licenses are purchased together with computers, access licenses vary according to the number of employees and server versions, Office licenses vary according to departments, and so on and so forth. In short, the clarity and information about procurement, inventory and valid licensing are in the vast majority of cases to be assigned to the statement “Sure we have them, it will fit!”.
Who bought a new Office again?
If licenses are not exactly financed with the cash reserves from the petty cash, the purchase is often staggered via a distributor. Unfortunately, here too, the only thing that usually remains is to ask the accounting department for the invoice, when and from whom licenses were purchased. And the fact that licenses can also be purchased as OLP (Open License Program) or OVP (Open Value Program), as an Enterprise Agreement, as a single package license (Office) for Home, Business or Pro variants, or as Office365 packages in E1, E2, E3 and many more, does not exactly help to keep things clear.
Microsoft’s VLSC (Volume License Service Center) clearly summarizes many of the licenses in a portal, but not all licenses are stored there by far. Quite apart from the fact that there are also software licenses that have nothing to do with Microsoft.
End the horror
Yes, tidiness is half the battle. And in the other half, we create the chaos that needs to be organized. But thanks to Docusnap and its integrated license management, there’s absolutely nothing standing in the way of fighting the chaos.
With Docusnap, you can store your licenses, whether from Microsoft or other manufacturers, directly in the database. There you can store all relevant data such as term, validity range and assignment to the systems. The special feature, however, is that “out of the box” reports are already stored, which clearly display a list of all Microsoft licenses on request. Together with the clear reports on the servers and clients used, this makes a license audit a very relaxed affair.
If you are also in favor of more serenity in (Microsoft) license audits, we would like to suggest that you take the step to Docusnap.
That’s Docusnap: