Determine SAM Compliance

Determining SAM Compliance

1. Conduct an inventory of installed software
2. Conduct an inventory of software licences
3. Reconcile installed software vs. software licences
4. Determine what is appropriate
5. What next?

1. Conduct an inventory of installed software

The first step in determining your SAM compliance is to know what your organisation has installed. To do this you will need to undertake an inventory of all installed software in your company. There are a few ways to do this:

Manual Inventory: This can be done by going to each machine and collecting the information from the machine.  You will need to create a template so that you collect the same information from each machine. This can be quite labour intensive and has room for errors.

Automatic Inventory: There are many programs available which provide listings of installed software across a network. One of these tools is Centennial Discovery which we can provide you with more information on if you are interested. You may already have an application that you use. Make sure it is an application that can identify Product versions as well as Software types.

2. Conduct an inventory of licences

You will need to track down any Software Licence Agreements you may have, and also find other supporting documents such as boxes from Retail Packaged Products and invoices describing payment for licences which may have come with hardware purchases. You may also need to look amongst any other company details (ie. if your company has been part of a merger or acqusition) to see whether there are additional licences attributed to those organisations.

3. Reconcile licences

When you have compiled all of your installed software and licence information into a spreadsheet, you will need to check them against each other to determine the differences (if any) between what is installed and what your organisation owns software licences for.

4. Determine what is appropriate

Once you know whether you are over-licensed or under-licensed, you will need to think about what is appropriate for your next steps. If you are over-licensed, you may want to make sure that no-one in your organisation purchases any new licences until the ones you have on hand are deployed. Depending on the Software Vendor, you may be able to negotiate refunds or discounted future software licence purchases. If you are under-licensed you will need to rectify this to minimise the risk of a Software Vendor taking action against your organisation. A good approach is to contact the Vendor, advising them of your attempts to ensure compliance, and organise a meeting to discuss what to do about the shortfall.

5. What next?

You should seriously consider... starting a SAM Program

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