Microsoft Self-Audit Letter
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@garak0410 said:
In researching our licenses, I did find folders and folders of certificates for DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95...for sure not in production...assuming that is OK to ditch...
Unless you have a stack of floppies and some old-ass hardware laying around that you feel like playing with for some unknown, odd reason...
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Wow, well at least this audit will help you get things cleaned up!
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@Minion-Queen said:
Wow, well at least this audit will help you get things cleaned up!
For real! And I am actually finding some useful stuff...hoping I do come across this needed info...
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I had this at one client back in March.
We had already performed our own internal audit and new that we needed some office licensing (10 licenses off 2013 Standard). We were going to purchase them over 3 months to spread out the impact on the numbers to cross two fiscal quarters. That ended up not happening.
I found nothing else wrong during the audit other than some misapplied keys. Was quite pleased to not have any surprises.
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@JaredBusch said:
I had this at one client back in March.
We had already performed our own internal audit and new that we needed some office licensing (10 licenses off 2013 Standard). We were going to purchase them over 3 months to spread out the impact on the numbers to cross two fiscal quarters. That ended up not happening.
I found nothing else wrong during the audit other than some misapplied keys. Was quite pleased to not have any surprises.
Our hole seems to be SQL...and it may be a large one too. If any user who uses even the simplest of spreadsheets that hits SQL to get data, they are considered a user, correct?
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@garak0410 said:
Our hole seems to be SQL...and it may be a large one too. If any user who uses even the simplest of spreadsheets that hits SQL to get data, they are considered a user, correct?
Oh yeah. Full user, no question.
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@garak0410 said:
Our hole seems to be SQL...and it may be a large one too. If any user who uses even the simplest of spreadsheets that hits SQL to get data, they are considered a user, correct?
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh yeah. Full user, no question.
Yeah that is a reason to go with the per core licensing instead of per user. Office people with spreadsheets are a really light, intermittent load generally.
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@JaredBusch said:
@garak0410 said:
Our hole seems to be SQL...and it may be a large one too. If any user who uses even the simplest of spreadsheets that hits SQL to get data, they are considered a user, correct?
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh yeah. Full user, no question.
Yeah that is a reason to go with the per core licensing instead of per user. Office people with spreadsheets are a really light, intermittent load generally.
I got a quote for the Core SQL: $6,571.32
Vs Per User (50 Users): $8,611.20
And the Core is for an unlimited amount of users, right?
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@garak0410 said:
I got a quote for the Core SQL: $6,571.32
Vs Per User (50 Users): $8,611.20
And the Core is for an unlimited amount of users, right?yes it is unlimited connections. Each license is for 2 cores though. So unless your SQL server is a virtual machine with only 2 cores, you will need to buy enough copies to match the number of cores in the server.
Base don the $6k number that sounds like two licenses so 4 cores?
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@JaredBusch said:
@garak0410 said:
I got a quote for the Core SQL: $6,571.32
Vs Per User (50 Users): $8,611.20
And the Core is for an unlimited amount of users, right?yes it is unlimited connections. Each license is for 2 cores though. So unless your SQL server is a virtual machine with only 2 cores, you will need to buy enough copies to match the number of cores in the server.
Base don the $6k number that sounds like two licenses so 4 cores?
Yes...2 licenses...still much cheaper than the 50 users...
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4 cores is the minimum purchase, right?
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Yes.
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OK, starting on my master spreadsheet today of our licensing. As per audit, I do not have to send this to Microsoft but it will be good for us going forward. I'll post questions for you licensing experts here.
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?
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@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.
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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?
