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With today’s technology heading towards extreme measures of virtualization and a variety of different strategies of deploying into the cloud, it has never been so important for companies to understand how to get the most out of IBM's Sub-capacity pricing option. Easier said than done, right? Because it is so essential for organizations to know how to calculate and maximize their IBM licensing, we are breaking it down to help you understand how Sub-capacity licensing works and sharing a few tips to help your organization move towards success.
WHAT IS SUB-CAPACITY LICENSING?
Per IBM, “Sub-capacity licensing lets you license an eligible software product for less than the full capacity of your server or group of servers.”
The easiest way to determine the difference between Sub-capacity and full capacity licensing is that consumption/deployment is calculated by:
- Sub-Capacity = # of cores on the virtual machine (VM)
- Full Capacity = # of cores on the physical host
FULL CAPACITY VS. SUB-CAPACITY - WHY IT MATTERS?
Unless you are fully compliant with IBM’s Sub-capacity licensing terms and requirements, you will be charged based on the number of cores on the physical host, NOT the VM.
This means that if the product is installed on a VM that has two cores and that VM sits on a physical host that has thirty-two cores unless you qualify for Sub-capacity licensing, you will be required to license all thirty-two cores of the physical host.
This is, by far, the most common pitfall experienced among IBM customers. Every day, we work with companies who could have saved millions of dollars in audit findings and software spend if they had understood IBM’s Sub-capacity terms and what it takes to maintain compliance.
SUB-CAPACITY REQUIREMENTS
To qualify for Sub-capacity licensing customers must:
1. Install IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) within 90 days of first use of eligible Sub-capacity product
2. Produce and retain quarterly reports (ILMT audit snapshot) for at least two years and make available at IBM’s request
A few extremely important notes of caution:
Customers will often interpret the above to mean that all they are required to do is install ILMT somewhere in their environment (doesn’t matter where - just get ILMT installed somewhere). The correct answer is, EVERY capacity-based deployment must have ILMT installed in order to qualify for Sub-capacity licensing. In other words, if a PVU product is deployed on a machine and said machine does not have ILMT installed, it will be counted at full capacity.
Additionally, ILMT must also be maintained as it will be used by IBM to determine consumption/license position during an audit. If ILMT is not maintained, incorrect/un-licensed products will show up as over-deployed (more on this in “Software Classification” section below).
