SAM License Compliance & Audits 3

Question 1

Which of the following is considered a 'soft' audit trigger that may prompt a vendor to initiate a license review?

Accepted Answer

A customer's contract approaching renewal with no upsell activity

Answer

A customer submitting a formal audit waiver request

Answer

A customer deploying only open-source alternatives

Answer

A customer maintaining a fully documented SAM program

Question 2

What does 'license harvesting' mean in the context of SAM?

Accepted Answer

Reclaiming licenses from inactive or departed users and redeploying them to active users

Answer

Purchasing licenses in bulk to achieve volume discount pricing

Answer

Removing all unlicensed software from endpoints in advance of an audit

Answer

Archiving old license certificates in a centralized repository

Question 3

A multinational company runs software on servers in the US, UK, and Germany. Which factor most complicates license compliance across these jurisdictions?

Accepted Answer

Varying license terms and geo-restrictions in country-specific EULAs

Answer

Differences in server hardware specifications across regions

Answer

Different time zones affecting usage reporting intervals

Answer

Regional differences in IT department staffing levels

Question 4

In a SAM audit, what is the significance of 'license position' vs. 'compliance position'?

Accepted Answer

License position refers to owned entitlements; compliance position compares entitlements to actual deployments

Answer

They are interchangeable terms used to describe the same audit metric

Answer

License position tracks costs; compliance position tracks user satisfaction

Answer

Compliance position measures patch levels; license position measures install counts

Question 5

A software vendor's license agreement prohibits 'benchmarking' without written consent. In a SAM context, this clause most likely prevents:

Accepted Answer

Publishing performance comparison data against competing products without approval

Answer

Using the software to measure employee productivity

Answer

Conducting internal software usage audits

Answer

Running automated license discovery scans on endpoints

Question 6

During an audit, a vendor claims entitlement to audit a company's cloud-hosted instances of their software. The SAM manager should first:

Accepted Answer

Review the contract to confirm whether the audit right extends to cloud or SaaS deployments

Answer

Grant immediate access to all cloud consoles to demonstrate good faith

Answer

Migrate all workloads to an alternative platform before the audit begins

Answer

Dispute the audit on the grounds that cloud deployments are outside vendor jurisdiction

Question 7

Which ISO standard provides guidance specifically for Software Asset Management processes and is widely referenced in SAM audits?

Accepted Answer

ISO/IEC 19770-1

Answer

ISO/IEC 27001

Answer

ISO/IEC 20000-1

Answer

ISO 9001