For SPLA Audits, When Historical Data Is Missing, Creativity May Be Required

Most software audits pertaining to products licensed under perpetual licenses (such as licenses acquired under a Microsoft Select Agreement, MPSA or (usually) Enterprise Agreement) incorporate a snapshot-in-time approach, where licenses owned generally are compared to deployments identified through data collected about current-state product deployments. In contrast, audits pertaining to products licensed under a Microsoft Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) incorporate a strong historical-use element. Since SPLA pricing is based on a monthly reporting model, SPLA audits look at historical usage during the period covered by an audit (often, three years or more), and then compare that historical usage to a licensees' historical usage reports.