Configuring Regions for IBM

FlexNet Manager Suite 2023 R1 (On-Premises)

To prevent 'follow-the-sun' licensing, IBM requires that you separately license target devices in each of three regions that it defines:

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

For any given IBM PVU or IBM VPC sub-capacity license, FlexNet Manager Suite automatically tracks consumption within the three regions, provided that:

• All the inventory devices that are consuming from the license have been assigned to a location (a type of enterprise group), and
• The locations used for this purpose have been mapped to the IBM regions.

The set-up of locations and their mapping to regions is done in the Enterprise > Locations page; and inventory devices are linked to locations through the Ownership tab of their inventory device properties.

Tip: By default, the location assigned to a host server is inherited by all the guest VMs running on that host (as is suitable, for example, for a departmental server and VMs). In this case, the Location field for the guest VM is a read-only display of the inherited value. If, instead, you want to assign VMs to locations different from their hosts (as is typical for a host in the IT server room hosting VMs for several different locations), navigate to the system menu ( in the top right corner), choose System Settings, and in the Inventory tab, clear the check box for Update virtual machine location to match host location; and finally scroll down to click Save. You may then open the inventory device settings for any guest virtual machine, edit the Location value on its Ownership tab, and save the change.

Of course, the use of locations is not limited to representing the three mandatory IBM regions. You may want to set up an entire structure of locations, where a region contains countries that contain states that contain cities that contain offices that are part of your enterprise. At the other extreme, if you are not using locations for any other purpose, you can minimally create just three locations, one for each of the IBM regions. The level of sophistication you implement is entirely up to you: in all structures, FlexNet Manager Suite rolls up the consumption data to provide correct regional totals for your reporting to IBM.

Note: You cannot separately control the change-over from ILMT to FlexNet Manager Suite one region at a time. While you need to report by regions, your entire enterprise gets its points consumed results from one source or the other, and makes the change-over at the same time.

This summary assumes that you do not already have appropriate locations specified.

To create a region-based enterprise structure:

1. In the web interface of FlexNet Manager Suite, navigate to Enterprise > Locations.
2. In the Actions column of the Locations row, click the + icon.
   A new row appears, with editable fields for the Name and Description columns.
3. Type new values in these two fields.
   For example, if you are using locations only for tracking IBM regions, your first entry may be:

   • Name: IBM Region 1: Americas
   • Description: Licensing roll-up for IBM PVU license management.

   However, if you are using locations for other kinds of administration, it may be any location you wish. Choosing a high-level location is convenient, since the IBM regions by default are inherited by lower-level, 'child' locations. In this case, you might choose an entry like North America.
4. When satisfied, hit Enter in either field, or click the blue disk (save) icon at the right end of the row.
5. With the row still selected, click Assign IBM region, and select one of the regions from the drop-down list to set the value for this location.
6. Repeat to create (at least) the remaining two top-level regions.
7. Optionally, select one of these regions again, and click the + icon to add child locations within a region. Repeat as often as needed to create your initial hierarchy of locations that roll up into the IBM regions.

This structure may now be applied to any local purchases, to the licenses you are about to create (see Configure Appropriate Licenses), and to your inventory device records (editable in the Ownership tab of the inventory device properties). For example, to set a single regional location value for many inventory devices at one time:

1. On a suitable inventory listing (such as the All Inventory page), search and filter to an appropriate set of devices.
2. Make sure that all the displayed devices are of the same type. For example, filter the Inventory device type column to a single value (say, VM Host).
3. On the left, select the devices that belong in the same location (but do not mix rows where the Connection name is blank with others where it is non-blank).
4. Click Open to display a property sheet of properties common to the selected devices.
5. Select the Ownership tab, and enter (or search for) the common location for these devices.
6. Click Save, and repeat as required for other groups of inventory devices.