IBM License Service Consumption Report

FlexNet Manager Suite 2022 R2 (On-Premises)
The IBM License Service Consumption report is a convenience report of data collected by the IBM License Service in your Kubernetes working environment. Use of the IBM License Service is mandatory for compliance with IBM licensing within Kubernetes clusters, including tracking sub-capacity consumption for IBM PVU and IBM VPC licenses authorizing use of IBM Cloud Paks and other products in those environments.
Important: The information in this report is (in general) an unmodified listing of data available from the IBM License Service:
  • It is completely unrelated to any inventory collection or license consumption calculations by FlexNet Manager Suite.
  • To preserve the original information from the IBM License Service, no attempt is made to "normalize" information to comply with Flexera standards. For example, product names in this report may not align with names used in the Application Recognition Library.
  • Consumption shown in this report is not included in any other listings or reports within FlexNet Manager Suite. For example, consumption listed in the IBM Cloud Pak License Consumption report is not included in this report, and vice versa.
  • If you have software included in this report that you have also separately licensed elsewhere (not in a Kubernetes environment), the Compliance status of those other licenses no longer reflects your total exposure. You need to combine the consumption reported by the IBM License Service (shown in this report) with the consumption recorded for your other license(s) for the same product, and compare the resulting sum to the entitlements purchased.
  • Two values (only) in this listing, Product metric and Product peak metric date, are not directly extracted from IBM License Service, but instead are calculated by FlexNet Manager Suite to summarize data collected daily from IBM License Service. For details, see the entries in the table below.

Generating the report

  1. Navigate to Reports > License Compliance > Licenses > IBM License Service Consumption.
  2. If necessary, use the two date pickers labeled Reporting period (in the top left corner) to adjust the reporting period. The maximum reporting period for this report is fixed at 180 days (and does not respond to any other settings within FlexNet Manager Suite).
  3. Click Run report.

Reading the report

This report includes at least one row for every IBM 'product' listed by the IBM License Service. The report may list each product more than once:
  • If the product is installed/used within more than one Kubernetes cluster, there are individual rows for the same product within each of those clusters. Each of these rows allow you to see the same total consumption for the product across all clusters (Product metric) on the Product peak metric date, as well as the individual Cluster metric contribution by each of the clusters on the same date — the date within your reporting period when the sum of all cluster contributions first reached its maximum/peak value. For example, the values may look like this (column names shortened to fit):
    Product name Product metric Peak metric date Cluster name Cluster metric
    Product 1 130 2021/01/06 Cluster A 100
    Product 1 130 2021/01/06 Cluster B 30
    Here the same product was running on two clusters on January 6, the date when the sum of the cluster consumption figures first peaked at 130 points, of which 100 were contributed by Cluster A and 30 by Cluster B.
    Tip: It is possible that either cluster had a higher individual consumption on some other date, but this is not relevant and not shown. Only the sum of consumption across clusters is relevant.
  • If the product is actually a software bundle (such as an IBM Cloud Pak), there are individual rows showing the product with each of its member "bundled products". Once again, each row shows the total consumption for the parent product (bundle) on the Product peak metric date, as well as the individual member product's contribution to that total. For example (column names shortened to fit):
    Product name Product metric Peak metric date B/product name Metric converted
    Product 1 130 2021/01/06 Bundle member X 80
    Product 1 130 2021/01/06 Bundle member Y 50
  • If the product is both a software bundle/Cloud Pak and installed/used within more than one Kubernetes cluster, there are individual rows for the same product with each of its bundled member products, and for each of those pairings across each cluster. As before, the Product fields show the same duplicated top-level summary in each row; and in this case, the 'duplicated' rows show the consumption for each member product on each cluster. Omitting the product total and peak date columns, our example becomes:
    Product name ... Cluster name Cluster metric B/product name Metric converted
    Product 1 Cluster A 100 Bundle member X 60
    Product 1 Cluster B 30 Bundle member X 20
    Product 1 Cluster A 100 Bundle member Y 40
    Product 1 Cluster B 30 Bundle member Y 10
    Here, Product 1 still has a total consumption of 130 points on January 6, of which 100 points are in Cluster A and 30 points in Cluster B. Within Cluster A, the bundled product X contributes 60 points, and the bundled product Y contributes 40 points (for Cluster A's total of 100), and so on.

In short, for all combinations of an individual product through a software bundle, running on a single cluster or multiple clusters, this report shows you, on any individual line, the total consumption (Product metric) for the product along with the lowest-level combination of a member bundled product (where applicable) on an individual cluster (where applicable). All consumption figures in the row for a product are for the same Product peak metric date, when the total consumption for the product first reached its maximum value in this reporting period.

The following columns are available. By default, all available columns are displayed in the report (although for special purposes, you may move any columns that you do not want included into the column chooser).

This report combines properties of:
  • Product (which is either an individually-licensed product, or a software bundle such as an IBM Cloud Pak)
  • Cluster (only Kubernetes clusters are included in this report)
  • Bundled product (an individual member product that is included in an IBM Cloud Pak/software bundle).

To clarify the report, the properties are grouped under headers that identify their underlying object. Similarly, this list of properties is grouped first by the object (alphabetically ordered), and then the related properties (also sorted alphabetically).

Table 1.
Column name Description
Bundled product properties
Bundled product ID

IBM's unique identifier for this individual product that is a member of a software bundle. (Blank if the product shown in Product name for this row is not a software bundle.)

Bundled product name

The name that IBM reports for this individual product within the software bundle. (Blank if the product shown in Product name for this row is not a software bundle.)

Metric converted quantity

The measure reported by IBM License Service as the consumption points for this individual product within the software bundle. Typically this is the arithmetic result of multiplying the Metric measured quantity by the Metric conversion ratio. (Blank if the individual product shown in Product name for this row is not a software bundle.)

Metric conversion

The ratio that IBM applies to the raw metric count (see Metric measured quantity) to calculate the final liability for licensing this product within its software bundle. (Blank if the individual product shown in Product name for this row is not a software bundle.)

Metric measured quantity

The raw count of the chosen metric (see Metric name) assessed by the IBM License Service monitoring. This is the daily consumption for this individual member of the software bundle on the Product peak metric date recorded for the overall bundle (typically, an IBM Cloud Pak). (Blank if the individual product shown in Product name for this row is not a software bundle.)

Cluster properties
Cluster ID

A unique identifier for the Kubernetes cluster. Use this to separate any clusters with overlapping names.

Cluster metric

The total consumption for this product (see Product name) across all nodes in the identified cluster, reported by IBM License Service as of the Product peak metric date. (Contrast with Product metric.)

Cluster name

The name given to the Kubernetes cluster of nodes (working computers, either physical or virtual). This name is not guaranteed to be unique (in facts, tends to repeat default values, such as mk). Check the Cluster ID to validate whether duplicate cluster names are actually referring to one cluster, or to multiples.

Product properties
Metric name
The measure used for calculating consumption for this product. The names may indicate the type of licensing expected for the current product:
  • PROCESSOR_VALUE_UNIT (an IBM PVU license)
  • VIRTUAL_PROCESSOR_CORE (an IBM VPC license)
Product ID
A unique identifier for either:
  • The individual product in this row (when it is not a software bundle containing multiple bundled products)
  • The software bundle (typically, an IBM Cloud Pak).
Product metric
The peak number of points (of the named metric) for the current product across all nodes in all clusters.
Note: This value is calculated by FlexNet Manager Suite from the consumption values for each cluster (Cluster metric) imported daily from the IBM License Service. This is the highest sum across all clusters in the chosen reporting period (the maximum period being the last 180 days), and first occurred on the Product peak metric date.
Tip: For standalone (non-bundle) products, when the Metric name is PROCESSOR_VALUE_UNIT, the IBM License Service has applied its own multiplier (similar to a Metric conversion) to the raw inventory information. Typically this multiplier is 70 PVU points for each vCPU. For more information about IBM calculations, see https://www.ibm.com/software/passportadvantage/containerlicenses.html.
Product name
The name recorded in the IBM License Service for the 'master' product in this row. (This may, or may not, match any product names listed in the Application Recognition Library, which may make it more difficult to align these results with the same product licensed separately in other environments.)
Tip: This product is either an individual product (in which case all the bundled product columns are blank), or a software bundle (such as an IBM Cloud Pak) that contains a number of member "bundled products". This Product name (along with its associated values, especially its Product metric and Product peak metric date which remain consistent) may be repeated multiple times in the listing, as explained above (see Reading the report).
Product peak metric date
The date when the highest (peak) value first occurred for total consumption across all clusters of the measure applied to this product (see Product metric).
Note: Determined by FlexNet Manager Suite, this is the date within your chosen reporting period (maximum 180 days) when the sum of the Cluster metric values imported from IBM License Service for all clusters had its highest value. The date of this maximum sum may be independent of the peak consumption dates within each individual Kubernetes cluster.

FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)

2022 R2