MS SAM Audit
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Yeah, a SAM audit, not to be confused with a Scott Alan Miller audit, is complete and utter BS. The easiest way to figure this out is to specifically ask them if it is a required audit or voluntary. If it's voluntary, why would you ever do it? There is simply no upside. The only time I would be concerned is if BSA contacted me. Then I would go to a CDW or a PC Connection for a licensing expert. Plus, in every case of the BSA getting involved, your company attorney(s) should be called in.
At the end of the day, those companies who are really violating licensing know they are doing it, and should not be surprise when BSA comes knocking. This is things like installing a retail Office on 30 computers, or using one server license across a whole server stack.
If you are working with a good reputable reseller, and are doing your best to be compliant, you will likely never have a problem.
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@pchiodo said in MS Audit???:
Yeah, a SAM audit, not to be confused with a Scott Alan Miller audit, is complete and utter BS. The easiest way to figure this out is to specifically ask them if it is a required audit or voluntary. If it's voluntary, why would you ever do it? There is simply no upside. The only time I would be concerned is if BSA contacted me. Then I would go to a CDW or a PC Connection for a licensing expert. Plus, in every case of the BSA getting involved, your company attorney(s) should be called in.
At the end of the day, those companies who are really violating licensing know they are doing it, and should not be surprise when BSA comes knocking. This is things like installing a retail Office on 30 computers, or using one server license across a whole server stack.
If you are working with a good reputable reseller, and are doing your best to be compliant, you will likely never have a problem.
I wouldn't trust your reseller on being the licencing expert. I've talked to a CDW 'licencing expert' before and know first hand that they are only experts in comparison to your account manager
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@flaxking said in MS Audit???:
I meant only for the Windows OS licence itself, CALs is a whole different world.
Yeah, you can definitely find ways to poll those.
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@pchiodo said in MS Audit???:
Plus, in every case of the BSA getting involved, your company attorney(s) should be called in.
This is important. A true audit is a pure legal matter and while IT needs to be involved, it's about attorneys, not techs. It's not a casual thing and requires Microsoft to pull a contract out and go down a path that would be insanely dangerous for anyone except corporate counsel to coordinate and all responses would go back through the attorney.
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@flaxking said in MS Audit???:
I wouldn't trust your reseller on being the licencing expert. I've talked to a CDW 'licencing expert' before and know first hand that they are only experts in comparison to your account manager
I agree, they are normally just casually aware sales people. At the end of the day, either study up or bring in paid consultants. Your reseller can assist a little, but they have very little insight and unless they offer indemnification, they can't help. Although, ask your lawyer, as MS doesn't sell direct and forces you to use a reseller, in some jurisdictions you may be able to use a fraud defense against MS.
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@scottalanmiller said in MS Audit???:
@flaxking said in MS Audit???:
I meant only for the Windows OS licence itself, CALs is a whole different world.
Yeah, you can definitely find ways to poll those.
Unfortunately slmgr doesn't seem to be able to detect if it's using a product key from a Visual Studio subscription. But maybe we just have to use some logic.
i.e. says it's Retail, but we don't have any Retail licences purchases so it must be a VS licence. Or it's MAK but doesn't match our recorded MAK
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@flaxking said in MS Audit???:
Unfortunately slmgr doesn't seem to be able to detect if it's using a product key from a Visual Studio subscription. But maybe we just have to use some logic.
That's one of the toughest things is all of the many ways that something can be licensed. Each scheme is so different, it can be very had for a tool to monitor all regime options.
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@flaxking said in MS Audit???:
I wouldn't trust your reseller on being the licencing expert. I've talked to a CDW 'licencing expert' before and know first hand that they are only experts in comparison to your account manager
Absolutely true. Although in most cases, they'll generally keep you in compliance and you'll never hear from MS or BSA.
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Good thing I have been ignoring these jerks. They have even called me. -
I got few emails from them too, it says somewhere that these audits are voluntary so I basically told them to pound sand and never to call me again. They did about a year later, and they got the same replay. I actually told them they'd have to pay me $300/h to do the audit, I won't do their work for free.
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@marcinozga said in MS Audit???:
I actually told them they'd have to pay me $300/h to do the audit, I won't do their work for free.
Yup, that's totally an option.
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I had it once, and thought the same thing, mandatory. But, even if I knew it was voluntary, I probably still would have done it anyway to force the company I worked for to get compliant (and upgrade a bunch of old dyeing PCs). So for me the self audit helped
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@smartkid808 said in MS Audit???:
I probably still would have done it anyway to force the company I worked for to get compliant (and upgrade a bunch of old dyeing PCs).
It can be nice for that. But you could just fake the audit and do it accurately if you want.
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@scottalanmiller said in MS Audit???:
It can be nice for that. But you could just fake the audit and do it accurately if you want.
True, but it helped to have backing proof of the audit saying we where out of compliance to scare the owner..lol
Nice to know we can refuse it tho. lol. -
@smartkid808 said in MS Audit???:
True, but it helped to have backing proof of the audit saying we where out of compliance to scare the owner
The problem is is that it's not an accurate audit so once it's fake, you can just fake whatever you want.
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@scottalanmiller true, and even add some wish list stuff ^_^ hahahah
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@smartkid808 said in MS Audit???:
@scottalanmiller true, and even add some wish list stuff ^_^ hahahah
Exactly. Once you are going down the path of "fake", make it count
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added tags
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Got another one of these today. I like getting to send a link to this thread when I make it clear that their legal right to contact us again has been removed
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@scottalanmiller
This may also help:
https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn/myth-busting-software-asset-management-and-compliance-audits/?ln=en-us
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/learn-more/compliance-verification-faqThings like:
- Microsoft SAM programs are voluntary services...
- A compliance audit is a mandatory review of a company’s use of Microsoft’s products and services...
These compliance verifications are initiated across less than 5% of Microsoft’s licensing customers worldwide
But ignoring things like:
- We believe that SAM can be a strategic advantage for all our customers
