IBM Licensing Overview Part 1
If you are new to IBM licensing or have a complex IBM license estate, you are likely to be wondering where to start with the vast number of materials IBM has produced on licensing their software.
Understanding your contractual obligations around IBM licensing can be daunting but it is necessary if you want to avoid any fines which are frequently in the millions.
As an IBM license consultant with extensive experience in IBM license optimisation and management, I have produced the following high-level overview of IBM licensing for distributed estates which, for ease of digestion of this complex topic, has been broken into three posts;
· IBM software entitlements & subscriptions
· IBM software usage
· IBM license baselines, remedial actions and audits
It’s important to note that this is a high-level overview as understanding all the nuances can take months if not years and requires continual focus to stay abreast of changes.
IBM software entitlements and subscriptions
Arguably the best place to start in establishing a license baseline is to determine what you have rights to use.
You may have entered into a wider contract or alternatively, have rights to use IBM software through a purchase via a reseller.
Either way, what you have rights to use can be found on IBM’s Passport Advantage site.
From Passport Advantage you can export historical records showing the IBM products you have purchased, the volume of these, the licensing metric, and the purchase date as well as the product maintenance you have, the volume you have maintenance for, the licensing metrics and the start and end dates of your maintenance.
The same applies to your software subscriptions but, due to the nature of a subscription, you have only paid for a service (license, support, resources) rather than the right to use the software.
In my next post on IBM software usage, I’ll discuss establishing your licensing baseline to determine what IBM software you are using and explain more about licensing metrics.
For more information
As IBM license experts, we are deeply familiar with a wide range of license considerations and are happy to help with any license queries you may have.
We are offering a complimentary licensing advisory session to understand any license concerns or projects that may impact your compliance position and to advise on the best way forward.
Alternatively, we can take a look at your ILMT Audit Snapshot and provide a recommendation as to how you might carry out exclusions or classifications and an indication of how much this might save you in financial terms.
To arrange one of these sessions, please go to our website or contact us.
Please follow the link to read more on our IBM License Optimisation services.
About the Author:
Kevin Barnes is an IBM SAM Consultant here at Version 1.
