Software Asset Management is an organization process, which is outlined in ISO/IEC 19770-1. It is also now embraced within # ISO 27001:2005 Information Technology - Security Techniques - Information Security Management Systems - Requirements[1] and ISO/IEC 17799:2005 Information Technology - Security Techniques - Code of Practice for Information Security Management.[2]
Software Asset Management is a comprehensive strategy that has to be addressed from top to bottom in an organization to be effective, to minimize risk. A software compliance audit is an important sub-set of Software Asset Management and is covered in the above referenced standards. At its simplest it involves the following:
The audit process itself should be a continuing action, and modern SAM software identifies what is installed, where it is installed, its usage, and provides a reconciliation of this discovery against usage. This is a very useful means of controlling software installations and lowering the costs of licensing. Large organisations could not do this without discovery and inventory applications.
From time to time internal or external audits may take a forensic approach to establish what is installed on the computers in an organisation with the purpose of ensuring that it is all legal and authorised and to ensure that its process of processing transactions or events is correct.
Software audits should not be confused with code audits, which are carried out on the source code of a software project.