There is no downside to a licensing model where you only pay for what you’re actually using and have the ability to increase or decrease licensing. This is what makes the IBM sub-capacity licensing model so attractive.

The advantages of IBM’s sub-capacity licensing model are obvious, but the misinterpretations and misunderstanding of how to deploy sub-capacity happens frequently. In fact, I would say three out of five clients we work with start out saying they are using sub-capacity licensing when in reality they are using full-capacity licenses.

Your enterprise is always at full-capacity with IBM unless the appropriate steps are taken to change that status to sub-capacity IBM licensing. With few exceptions, IBM will consider an organization at full-capacity unless IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) is implemented. What does this mean? If ILMT hasn’t been implemented, IBM doesn’t recognize your right to license at sub-capacity and will, in fact, view the organization’s license metrics as a full-capacity IBM licensing model. Under full-capacity licensing, you must license all active, physical processors in the server versus sub-capacity licensing where you pay for the virtual cores allocated.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here