The hard part of Microsoft licensing
is the server room.
CerteroX works out what you owe Microsoft for servers, access rights and Microsoft 365, checks it against what you have bought, and shows where you are paying for more than you use.
Microsoft position
IllustrativeBy product · reconciled against MLS
Cluster and virtualisation aware
- Windows Server 2022 Datacenter per core, cluster-wide
- 512 required
- SQL Server Enterprise per core, passive failover applied
- variance −24
- Windows Server CAL (device) devices accessing the servers
- 4,180 / 4,000
- RDS CAL (user) access control rules applied
- 900 / 1,200
- Microsoft 365 E5 no activity in 30+ days
- 318 idle
Entitlement source
Microsoft Licence Statement, imported
Microsoft’s biggest costs sit in the server room.
Counting desktop licences is straightforward. Server and access licensing depends on how your systems are built and who can reach them, which no purchase record shows. CerteroX models that for you and compares it with Microsoft’s own statement of what you have bought.
- Cost
Use the rights you already paid for.
See unused Microsoft 365 licences and the entitlements you are not claiming, before buying more.
- Risk
A position that holds up to Microsoft.
Server licensing reflects how your systems really run, and is reconciled to Microsoft’s own licence statement.
- Effort
No more annual true-up scramble.
The position is kept up to date as systems change, so the true-up becomes a review rather than a project.
Customer
“Certero’s SAM managed service allowed us to significantly mature our license posture at a fast pace, something that would have taken 3-4 years without their involvement.”
- Microsoft compliance risk mitigated
- £100k
- of SAM maturity accelerated
- 3–4 yrs
Recognition
The only vendor named Customers’ Choice in the 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Software Asset Management Tools.
4× Customers’ Choice in the category: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024
Read the announcementGARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark, and PEER INSIGHTS is a trademark and service mark, of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.
Three of the five disciplines.
Each runs standalone and shares one asset model, so the parts of this that span products need no integration work.
- Primary CerteroX SAM CALs, core and processor licensing, MLS import, downgrade rights and the effective licence position. Learn more
- Also applies CerteroX SaaS Management Microsoft 365 seat usage, reclamation and offboarding through the vendor connector. Learn more
- Also applies CerteroX ITAM SCCM, Intune, WSUS, Active Directory and Hyper-V: the inventory the licensing is computed from. Learn more
Running the SAM or IT side? The full detail covers how the figures are built, what each part of the platform does and the questions practitioners ask us most.
Show advanced detailSee the statement reconciled
and the server room modelled.
An MLS import reconciled against the agreements, core and CAL licensing modelled across a cluster, and the idle Microsoft 365 seats on the same asset record. Say whether servers, CALs or subscription hurts most and the session leads with it.
Come with the true-up you are dreading. That is the conversation worth having.