Microsoft Self-Audit Letter
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@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
First question...the original letter said not to uninstall anything that may be unlicensed at reception of the letter. If I find something installed that is unlicensed, even if we don't need it, do I buy as license for it?
Legally, yes. You already owe Microsoft the money because you have it installed. You owe retroactively because you've been owing them all of this time. Just because you uninstall it doesn't change that.
Now will you ever get caught? Not likely. But ethically, it is money owed to Microsoft.
And ethically, I would buy it because we are agreeing to do so in that document we have to sign over when the audit is complete.
Next Question...we rebuilt our old server with Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 2CPU/2VM - Base License - OEM. Is that a violation since this was a rebuild of an old server? This server is my "play" server so I am the only one who uses it but we do run Spiceworks from it.
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@garak0410 said:
Next Question...we rebuilt our old server with Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 2CPU/2VM - Base License - OEM. Is that a violation since this was a rebuild of an old server? This server is my "play" server so I am the only one who uses it but we do run Spiceworks from it.
OEM is fine as long as that is the only system on which that was ever applied.
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You can rebuild all that you want, it is transferring the license that you cannot do.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
Next Question...we rebuilt our old server with Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 2CPU/2VM - Base License - OEM. Is that a violation since this was a rebuild of an old server? This server is my "play" server so I am the only one who uses it but we do run Spiceworks from it.
OEM is fine as long as that is the only system on which that was ever applied.
Excellent...so if we run, say Spiceworks, on this second server, as mentioned above. If someone uses the Help Desk Portal, is that considered a CAL?
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@garak0410 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
Next Question...we rebuilt our old server with Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 2CPU/2VM - Base License - OEM. Is that a violation since this was a rebuild of an old server? This server is my "play" server so I am the only one who uses it but we do run Spiceworks from it.
OEM is fine as long as that is the only system on which that was ever applied.
Excellent...so if we run, say Spiceworks, on this second server, as mentioned above. If someone uses the Help Desk Portal, is that considered a CAL?
No, because you're not using a Windows service.
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@garak0410 said:
Excellent...so if we run, say Spiceworks, on this second server, as mentioned above. If someone uses the Help Desk Portal, is that considered a CAL?
Yes, it is, because the users are internal. Only anonymous external users do not qualify as requiring CALs. Windows is NOT a good system to use for third party applications for this reason.
This "anonymous external" versus "known internal" differentiation is one of the huge caveats of using Windows.
Do you really have internal users that do not have CALs already, though?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
Excellent...so if we run, say Spiceworks, on this second server, as mentioned above. If someone uses the Help Desk Portal, is that considered a CAL?
Yes, it is, because the users are internal. Only anonymous external users do not qualify as requiring CALs. Windows is NOT a good system to use for third party applications for this reason.
This "anonymous external" versus "known internal" differentiation is one of the huge caveats of using Windows.
Do you really have internal users that do not have CALs already, though?
They have CALS's on our production host/domain controller but no on this "secondary" server...I purchased the OEM copy to rebuild this server but didn't consider CAL's needed for something as simple as the Spiceworks Portal.
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@garak0410 said:
They have CALS's on our production host/domain controller but no on this "secondary" server...I purchased the OEM copy to rebuild this server but didn't consider CAL's needed for something as simple as the Spiceworks Portal.
I don't understand. CALs are by user, not by server. CALs don't exist "on" anything.
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A user only needs one CAL to access all the servers in your organisation. You don't need separate CALs for each server. But a Windows 2008 CAL will not give you access to a Windows 2012 server (although a 2012 CAL gives access to all earlier versions of Windows Server).
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@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
They have CALS's on our production host/domain controller but no on this "secondary" server...I purchased the OEM copy to rebuild this server but didn't consider CAL's needed for something as simple as the Spiceworks Portal.
I don't understand. CALs are by user, not by server. CALs don't exist "on" anything.
So by purchasing the 50 CAL's when I purchased 2012R2 for my main Hyper-V Host, that should carry over to my entire "enterprise"??
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@Carnival-Boy said:
A user only needs one CAL to access all the servers in your organisation. You don't need separate CALs for each server. But a Windows 2008 CAL will not give you access to a Windows 2012 server (although a 2012 CAL gives access to all earlier versions of Windows Server).
Got it...so I am good there...
If I can just verify through the MLS that we may have the SQL CAL'S needed (awaiting the report from a vendor), we should end up being OK.
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@garak0410 said:
So by purchasing the 50 CAL's when I purchased 2012R2 for my main Hyper-V Host, that should carry over to my enter "enterprise"??
CALs are assigned to people. That you purchased them at the same time as something isn't relevant. Once a user in the company is licensed to access servers, they can access servers. You are licensing the people.
Each server needs one server license, each person needs a user license (CAL.) It's that simple. There is no user to server mapping license. Think about what that would mean in an enterprise with 10,000 servers. It would be $300,000 PER USER for access rights. Even a secretary or a receptionist would need $300K of licenses just for them to do basic tasks like logging in. If you applied the same logic to SQL Server and Exchange suddenly you are spending half a million or more for every employee that comes in the door on their first day! No one could run Windows.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
So by purchasing the 50 CAL's when I purchased 2012R2 for my main Hyper-V Host, that should carry over to my enter "enterprise"??
CALs are assigned to people. That you purchased them at the same time as something isn't relevant. Once a user in the company is licensed to access servers, they can access servers. You are licensing the people.
Each server needs one server license, each person needs a user license (CAL.) It's that simple. There is no user to server mapping license. Think about what that would mean in an enterprise with 10,000 servers. It would be $300,000 PER USER for access rights. Even a secretary or a receptionist would need $300K of licenses just for them to do basic tasks like logging in. If you applied the same logic to SQL Server and Exchange suddenly you are spending half a million or more for every employee that comes in the door on their first day! No one could run Windows.
Thanks...Brain has been hurting since this audit but I am good now. It is signing that legal document that me crossing the T's and dotting the I's...:) And just getting a firm understanding on the licenses...
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A.J. was correct above that I received the same letter requesting the self audit. If I recall correctly, you have to get an officer of the company to sign the letter to say you are compliant and send it off to someone at Microsoft in order to confirm you either were compliant or have put things in place to get that way (orders of more licenses).
Also, it specifically mentioned open license agreements and not retail or OEM licenses. I'm not saying not to check those, but I think you can see where I am going with this.
I must not have the spreadsheet everyone mentions here. It does not help that this hit at the same time as our ERP system upgrade (Epicor - doing it over Thanksgiving).
My MS letter said we have 30 days to get that signed paper back to a MS rep.
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@NetworkNerd said:
A.J. was correct above that I received the same letter requesting the self audit. If I recall correctly, you have to get an officer of the company to sign the letter to say you are compliant and send it off to someone at Microsoft in order to confirm you either were compliant or have put things in place to get that way (orders of more licenses).
Also, it specifically mentioned open license agreements and not retail or OEM licenses. I'm not saying not to check those, but I think you can see where I am going with this.
I must not have the spreadsheet everyone mentions here. It does not help that this hit at the same time as our ERP system upgrade (Epicor - doing it over Thanksgiving).
My MS letter said we have 30 days to get that signed paper back to a MS rep.
Don't you love having 18 bajillion things to do at the same time though?
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@thanksaj said:
@NetworkNerd said:
A.J. was correct above that I received the same letter requesting the self audit. If I recall correctly, you have to get an officer of the company to sign the letter to say you are compliant and send it off to someone at Microsoft in order to confirm you either were compliant or have put things in place to get that way (orders of more licenses).
Also, it specifically mentioned open license agreements and not retail or OEM licenses. I'm not saying not to check those, but I think you can see where I am going with this.
I must not have the spreadsheet everyone mentions here. It does not help that this hit at the same time as our ERP system upgrade (Epicor - doing it over Thanksgiving).
My MS letter said we have 30 days to get that signed paper back to a MS rep.
Don't you love having 18 bajillion things to do at the same time though?
That seems to be a consistent theme lately.
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@NetworkNerd said:
@thanksaj said:
@NetworkNerd said:
A.J. was correct above that I received the same letter requesting the self audit. If I recall correctly, you have to get an officer of the company to sign the letter to say you are compliant and send it off to someone at Microsoft in order to confirm you either were compliant or have put things in place to get that way (orders of more licenses).
Also, it specifically mentioned open license agreements and not retail or OEM licenses. I'm not saying not to check those, but I think you can see where I am going with this.
I must not have the spreadsheet everyone mentions here. It does not help that this hit at the same time as our ERP system upgrade (Epicor - doing it over Thanksgiving).
My MS letter said we have 30 days to get that signed paper back to a MS rep.
Don't you love having 18 bajillion things to do at the same time though?
That seems to be a consistent theme lately.
Lol I know the feeling...
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So How do you go about Self Audit? What are the things that you audit ? Hopefully you have a easy way to do it.
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@dashokkumar said:
So How do you go about Self Audit? What are the things that you audit ? Hopefully you have a easy way to do it.
Well, if I understand the letter correctly, it is mainly aimed at Volume Licenses and things like server and CAL compliance. I went ahead and did an audit of our workstations and Office as well. We are in pretty good shape. They purchased SQL long before I got here and I cannot verify the license or CAL's on it, so may have to end up purchasing licenses there.
I just hate to sign over a legal document, feel good about it but get fined on a real audit due to "ignorance" of the agreements. So trying to get a good understanding of EVERY license. I've requested an MLS from a vendor but they said Microsoft's' site for that has been down and they can't get it to me yet.
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For those clients who got the letter, were there any that were way out of compliance and did not realize it? I was wondering how the the client reacted to that kind of thing.
