ITPEC FE Morning October 2020 Question 60

Checking that evidence such as software licence certificates is retained — a software asset management audit verifies that the organisation can prove its right to use the software it runs.

Software asset management keeps an inventory of the installed software and of the licences held, and matches the two so that nothing runs without a licence. An audit of it checks that these controls work, and relies on evidence: licence certificates, purchase records and agreements kept and matched to the installation records. Without that evidence the organisation cannot show that its use of the software is licensed.

Answer (b)

Why not others:

• •(a) — evaluating compatibility with existing systems at installation is a technical check when introducing a system, not part of managing software as an asset
• •(c) — localising failures by partitioning a database is fault-tolerant design, an availability concern
• •(d) — considering the provider's organisation and functions belongs to choosing a vendor, not to managing the licences already held

Key rule: Auditing an asset process means checking evidence that the assets are accounted for; for software, that evidence is the licence documentation proving the right to use it.

System Audit · AI-written, may contain errors