FlexNet Manager Suite version 2020 R2
IBM encourages customers to license IBM Cloud Paks with a new form of sub-capacity
licensing that counts virtual processor cores assigned to run the software. This release
of FlexNet Manager Suite includes a new IBM VPC license type for non-containerized
infrastructure that simplifies this form of licensing, as well as licensing traditional
bundles or individual products. (Support for containers is planned for a forthcoming
release.)
As IBM Cloud Paks may be bundles with multiple primary products, the VPC license
Consumption tab is specialized to allow the consumption
tree(s) to start from the product(s) attached to the license, below which you can
identify the virtual host, any applicable resource pools, and the virtual machines
running the software. Alternatively, for those VPC licenses covering only a single
primary product, the consumption tree(s) are more familiar, starting with the virtual
host(s) where the licensed software is running on a guest VM.
Tip: In Cloud
Pak bundles, the licensing of primary products also covers any bundled supplementary
products, so these supplementary cannot be separately licensed.
For software
running on an instance provided by an eligible
cloud service provider, IBM's eligible
public cloud BYOSL policy now recommends counting assigned vCPUs (or threads), and using
these for both IBM PVU and VPC licenses instead of the core count. For any inventory
device record where the
Hosted in property has been set to a
cloud service provider (and not, of course, to
On-premises), both these IBM license types
automatically take account of assigned vCPUs. Similarly, if the software runs on a
stand-alone (non-virtualized) server, the licenses automatically take account of
processor cores.
A VPC license doesn't have a points table as such (the way that a PVU license assigns
points based on the processor type); but each licensed product in an IBM Cloud
Pak bundle has an individual ratio of the number of VPCs permitted for each license
entitlement. For example, if a particular product in the bundle has a
2:1 ratio, two VPCs can be used to run that product for
every individual license entitlement. If another product in the same bundle has a
1:1 ratio, then that same single license entitlement
also authorizes one core (VPC) to be assigned to run the second product.
In general, the IBM VPC license is for managing sub-capacity consumption in a way very
similar to the IBM PVU license, and in fact all the same PVU sub-capacity rules apply to
licensing IBM Cloud Paks. For example, the VPC license tracks peak consumption within
the same three mandatory IBM regions, and for the same reporting period, as do PVU
licenses. Another familiar requirement, if you have been granted a license variation to
use
FlexNet Manager Suite to track sub-capacity consumption of PVU license, is that
you must archive your sub-capacity consumption reports for two years. This release
includes two additional reports that can be saved/archived in the same cycle as your
equivalent PVU reports:
- IBM Cloud Pak License Consumption records the
region-based peak sub-capacity license consumption for a given reporting
period
- IBM Cloud Pak License Current Consumption shows the
region-based consumption for all Cloud Pak licenses as of the most recent
license compliance calculation (typically overnight last night).
You can jump directly to either report from the Consumption tab on
an IBM VPC license's property sheet, and they are of course also accessible through the
Reports menus.
FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)
2021 R1