SPLA Licensing

Best Practices
This document is purposed with highlighting/flagging some of the most common licensing challenges Service Providers
encounter. The Microsoft Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) is designed to provide a flexible licensing model for
Service Providers to adapt their software licensing based on the needs of their customers. It also provides for a number of
beneficial services that you can provide to your customers. As a Microsoft SPLA Partner, here are some best practices for the
most common licensing scenarios to assist you in managing your Microsoft software assets:

Licensing End Users via SALs

A Subscriber Access License (SAL) is required for every user that is authorized to access your instances of the server
software directly or indirectly, regardless of actual access of the server software. Services Providers should ensure that
appropriate restrictions are in place – if a user can access the software, they should be l icensed.

Testing of Products
Service providers may test a new Microsoft Product for 90 days. This period begins when you first acquire the
original media or download the software. This is per Service Provider, not per End Customer. You can only
test once per Product.

End Customer Evaluations

Service Providers may provide Software Services on a Trial Basis under several conditions, these conditions
can be found in the SPUR and include, amongst others: You must not charge for this period; It must be no
longer than 60 days; You must keep records.

Define License Responsibility

In certain scenarios, hosted environments can be licensed either by the Service Provider (through SPLA), or by
leveraging your End Customers’ licenses. It is important for Service Providers to have a written agreement to
define license responsibility for all End Customer environments.

End Customer Licensable Products

For some products, Microsoft allows for License Mobility, which is a Software Assurance benefit that allows an End
Customer to bring their own Volume Licenses to cover a deployment in a third-party, shared hosted environment. Office is
not eligible for License Mobility, and therefore its use in a third-party, shared environment requires licensing via SPLA.

How Software Asset Management (SAM) can help:

RISKMANAGEMENT ADD VALUE TO YOUR MORE LIABILITY CONTROL
PEACE OFMIND END CUSTOMERS

A good SAM program can help control
the risks associated with improper
licensing procedures. You’ll know
where you stand with your software
and licenses, plus you'll have peace of
mind knowing that you are using
genuine products with all their
associated benefits.
Licensing can be an afterthought for
many of your End Customers. Leverage
your expertise to ensure that both your
Software Services and your End
Customer Licensed deployments are
Compliant.
A good SAM plan helps you ensure that
your licenses are compliant. SAM can
also help you achieve compliance with
government regulations that may require
strict standards of IT governance and
controls.