Configure Appropriate Licenses

FlexNet Manager Suite 2023 R1 (On-Premises)

Naturally, you require appropriate license records of type IBM PVU or IBM VPC for all relevant IBM software. Less self-evident is that the license(s) must be operational (that is, have consumption recorded against them) before you can configure them to meet IBM's special requirements for high-frequency scanning. This makes it convenient to have the license(s) in place before you collect your first (or next) inventory from the computers running the relevant IBM software. In this way, the initial inventory collection and license reconciliation can immediately make your IBM sub-capacity license(s) operational, showing consumption against the linked application(s), and enabling the special configuration required for sub-capacity licensing.

For the IBM PVU license type, you may already have licenses in place, for example if they have been created automatically based on data imports from your ILMT server.

Tip: If you deleted a license record that had been created to match imports from ILMT, this license is not recreated on subsequent imports from ILMT. If you need to 'recover' this license, create it manually.

If you do not yet have the licenses in place, you can create them in any of the usual ways. Best practice (described here) is to drive license creation through your purchase records, since this provides an acceptable audit trail of your entitlements, and allows automation to configure many of the product use rights on the license for you. This is particularly powerful if you have the correct SKU (stock keeping unit) identifying codes for the IBM products you purchased. One example is that, when the correct SKUs are available, FlexNet Manager Suite defaults to creating full-capacity licenses for applications that are ineligible for sub-capacity licensing (whereas, when creating a license manually, you have to select the appropriate full capacity or sub-capacity template for the application, perhaps making use of IBM’s Passport Advantage Sub-capacity Licensing Eligible Product Statement).

However, creating licenses from purchase records is not mandatory, and you may proceed in other ways, such as manually creating license records and linking purchase records to them later. (To create a license manually, navigate to License Compliance > Create a license, and see the Creating a License topic in the online help.)

Important: Keep in mind that IBM requires separate consumption calculations and reporting in each of the major IBM-defined regions:

• Region 1: North America and South America
• Region 2: Europe and Africa
• Region 3: Asia and Australia.

If your enterprise consumes IBM sub-capacity licenses across more than one of these regions, the best way to manage this is to:

1. Ensure that you have set up enterprise groups based on location that can roll up into the appropriate IBM regions. (If you do not use locations for other purposes, it may be sufficient to set up just the top three, one per region.) For details, see Configuring Regions for IBM.
2. Assign the inventory devices consuming PVU points or VPC entitlements to an appropriate enterprise group (location), as noted at the end of Configuring Regions for IBM.
3. Best practice is to create just one IBM sub-capacity license worldwide for each product (or bundle). This allows for the correct tracking of points/entitlements across regions, and for correct totalling of the liability for the license.
   Tip: If you have strong reasons for maintaining multiple licenses per product (such as a history of mergers and acquisitions leading to separate reporting to IBM for different entities), use a different kind of enterprise group, such as corporate units, to separate purchases and licenses into the appropriate corporate structure. Overlay the same system of locations described here so that device consumption is correctly rolled up into regions for each of your corporate divisions.

Consumption is then automatically calculated for each of the regions reported on each license. Any consuming device that is not owned by a location suitably linked to an IBM region is flagged in the Consumption tab of the license properties, and included in a separate subtotal for unassigned devices in the Compliance tab of the same license. You should attend to the ownership of these devices as soon as possible (and before reporting to IBM), since a change of regional assignment may change the peak consumption figures (and possibly also the peak dates) for the affected regions.

One additional factor to consider is whether to create single product or multi-product licenses (the latter are used to track software bundles). If your licenses were created automatically to match imports from ILMT, bundles are (by default) automatically matched. This is also the case if your purchase includes a SKU that identifies a bundle. A multi-product license shows applications in the Applications tab that list multiple values in the Product column (which is why it is called a multi-product license); and the Use rights & rules tab is also configured differently, showing the use rights for each product, including whether each one is primary or supplementary. Supplementary products can be configured so that they do not consume license entitlements, being covered by the licensed primary product. If you are manually configuring license use rights and restrictions, a useful resource is the License Information Document (LID) for your product. You can search for these LIDs on the IBM’s License Information Document Search page.

To create licenses by processing purchases (summary):

1. Do one of the following:
   • Import purchase records from your purchasing system using a business adapter (see the chapter on The Business Adapter Studio in the Using FlexNet Business Adapters PDF for details).
   • Download your detailed Order History from IBM Passport Advantage, and import it (navigate to > Data Inputs > Business Data > One-off upload, and see Purchase Order Upload in the online help).
   • Create a spreadsheet of purchase records, and import the spreadsheet (similar place in FlexNet Manager Suite, and described in the same help page).
   • Create a purchase record manually (navigate to Procurement > Create a Purchase, and see Creating a purchase in the online help).
   In all cases, be sure to secure the documentary evidence of your purchases against the possibility of a future audit. (One possibility is scanning the original purchase document and attaching the scan to your purchase record using the Documents tab of the purchase properties.)
2. Navigate to Procurement > Unprocessed Purchases, and select your new purchase record(s) there.
3. Click Recalculate to generate recommendations for processing the selected purchase(s). If you are happy with a recommendation, select that row and click Accept.
   If there are no recommendations (perhaps because you do not have a SKU and have not previously processed a similar purchase), select the purchase and click Process to step through the processing wizard instead.
   At the end of purchase processing, your purchase has been linked to an appropriate license. If your purchase record included a known SKU, most of the product use rights on the license have been configured for you. Typically, the license properties are now open.
4. In the properties sheet of your IBM sub-capacity license, select the Use rights & rules tab, and expand the section Rights on virtual machines and hosts.
5. For sub-capacity licensing, make sure that Use sub-capacity license calculations where available is selected.
   Tip: Not all software is eligible for sub-capacity licensing. Check the terms of your original license agreement. (When a particular license is for an application that requires full capacity licensing, instead select Always use full capacity license calculations for this license.)
6. If you plan to use any exemptions based on device roles, stay on the Use rights & rules tab, expand the section Exemptions, and select any device roles for which the license agreement allows a license-free installation.
   Later, when device inventory has been collected, you can assign the correct roles to appropriate inventory devices (see Set Up and Collect Inventory, and Reconcile). When the roles are correctly configured, FlexNet Manager Suite automatically exempts the appropriate devices from license consumption. (An alternative approach, adding individual exemptions directly in the Consumption tab of the license properties, has already been described in Additional Transition Steps.)

   Tip: In an audit, you may be asked to substantiate these settings. A helpful audit trail may be, in the license properties, to add comments in the Notes on the Identification tab, or attach a scan of the relevant part of the license agreement to the Documents tab.
7. Check the Applications tab of the license properties to ensure that the IBM application you are expecting is linked to the license.
   This must be an application for which you expect to see an installation record after your forthcoming hardware and software inventory. The license must have a linked application for which entitlements are being consumed after the next inventory import and license consumption calculation.
8. Above the tabs in the License Properties page, click Save to store all your edits in the database.
9. Loop back to process the next available purchase record.

Whether by this process or one of the alternatives, you should end up with one IBM sub-capacity license per product (or per bundle, where appropriate), allowing automatic roll-up of consumption from devices 'owned' by each IBM region; and the license should be linked to at least one purchase that provides the initial stock of entitlements. You may link additional purchases to the license at any time, reflecting your purchases from IBM (or its dealers).