Okay, so it wasn’t a party but your SPLA audit is finally coming to a close. If you are like many SPLA partners who have gone through an audit this year, June is the month that a huge percentage of audits are settled with Microsoft, as this month marks the end of their fiscal year.
The question many partners ask us is, what now?
The snapshot taken by the audit firm – the scans of your hosting environment that reveal what you are consuming under SPLA – is likely a year old. Those same snapshots may have revealed decommissioned servers, users that had access but were no longer using the service (technically you must pay for anyone who the ability to access a service, regardless if they did so or not in any given month), SQL servers that are seriously under-utilized . . . and otherwise a lot of stale data.
The final ELP (Effective Licensing Position) handed over to Microsoft for settlement with you - the SPLA partner - isn’t a blueprint for reporting going forward.
So like any bad party, when it’s over, it’s time to clear your head and clean up the mess.
Post-audit is a great time and opportunity to do an assessment of your environment and fully optimize your Microsoft licensing and hardware.
The first step is to understand what you need to report going forward. While you could run the MAP tool against your environment, or whatever tool the audit firm had you use, you are only accomplishing one thing: capturing inventory at a point-in-time.
In the short term, running a tool like Movere might make a lot more sense. Not only do you capture inventory, but also server utilization (opportunities to consolidate SQL servers) as well as workloads that may be better suited for the Public Cloud.
For the longer term – to ensure you are in a good position for your next audit – we recommend developing a dynamic, monthly SAM (Software Asset Management) practice that captures and maintains historical records of all the changes in your unique hosting environment.
If you did just finish an audit, we’d be happy to discuss the experience and what your options are going forward, including non-SPLA licensing vehicles like CSP and HISV (Hosted Independent Software Vendor).
Either email us at info@altariscloud.com or book a complimentary consultation using our booking tool below.
From your Microsoft Licensing Specialists at Altaris Cloud.