You may not be able to avoid a software license compliance audit, but you can start now to reduce the impact that an audit may have on your organization by implementing some best practices for software asset management (SAM). These practices can reduce some of the red flags that non-compliant companies reveal to those vendors who audit.
SAM best practices:
- Established policies and processes for how software is used, distributed and managed within the enterprise.
- A software discovery method/tool for determining what is installed and/or being used throughout the enterprise.
- A central repository for storing and linking software license data (contracts, purchase records, and so on) to hardware and software assets.
- A periodically scheduled self-audit process rooted in the same methodologies used by vendor auditors that allow you to address any over and under licensing. The added benefit to this is cost control.
- Centralized procurement processes to eliminate the many ways that software...