License Consumption Rules
Background
- Software installations revealed in imported software inventory always
trigger consumption for device-based licenses. There are limited ways to
modify this behavior, such as retiring the hardware asset on which the
software is installed. For some device-related licenses (such as processor
limited), the hardware configuration may prevent an installation consuming
from (or being covered by) this license. But as a general rule, installation
requires license coverage. Tip: For virtual machines, the ability to consume from a particular license may be limited by what is set as the Hosted in for the inventory device (see General Tab), compared with what is selected here for the Cloud service providers choice (see below). For example, if this license has only On-premises selected, then an inventory device marked as hosted in any cloud environment cannot consume from this license.
- Individual allocations from this license to computers or users have
either of two effects:
- The default behavior is that, in competition for limited license
entitlements, an allocation gives top priority to an installation
(or usage) record. For example, if you had a single entitlement and
two installations, one of which is backed by an allocation, then the
allocated installation wins the entitlement, and the other
installation is unlicensed. This is useful behavior when it is
possible to inventory computers in the normal way.Note: For SaaS User licenses and Microsoft User Client Access Licenses (CALs), each allocation of a user by default consumes one entitlement. For Microsoft Device CALs, each allocation of a device by default consumes one entitlement.
- You may choose to make all allocations (for a given license) always count as consumption, even for those computers that cannot be inventoried. For example, if a road warrior's notebook eludes you, you can allocate a license to that machine, and make allocations count for consumption. Since allocations may only be made and removed by manual effort, this has the downside risk that you forget to remove the allocation when necessary. (At the time of retiring a computer asset, any existing allocations are stripped off; but be aware that it is still possible to make a new allocation to a device for which the asset record is marked as retired, until such time as you clear this device out of inventory.) Also be aware of the need to manually set the Overridden Consumption on point-based licenses.
- The default behavior is that, in competition for limited license
entitlements, an allocation gives top priority to an installation
(or usage) record. For example, if you had a single entitlement and
two installations, one of which is backed by an allocation, then the
allocated installation wins the entitlement, and the other
installation is unlicensed. This is useful behavior when it is
possible to inventory computers in the normal way.
- The simple ability to access an application (having adequate network permissions) is enough to count as consumption for some licenses, particularly those that are hard to measure (such as CALs, or licenses for virtualized applications streamed from an application server or delivered through a virtual desktop).
- In other cases (sometimes after some firm negotiation with the publisher!), consumption of these 'difficult' licenses only occurs when there is evidence that the application has actually been used by someone (called usage in IT Asset Management).
Restrictions
- CAL Legacy
- Microsoft User CAL
- Microsoft Device CAL
- Oracle Application User
- Oracle Legacy
- Oracle Named User Plus
- Oracle Processor.
- Appliance
- Client Server
- Device
- Device (Core-Limited)
- Device (Processor-Limited)
- Evaluation
- IBM Authorized User
- Named User
- Run-Time
- User.
- CAL Legacy
- IBM Authorized User
- IBM Concurrent User
- IBM Floating User
- Microsoft Device CAL
- Microsoft SCCM Client Device
- Microsoft SCCM Client User
- Microsoft User CAL
- Named User
- Oracle Application User
- SAP Named User
- SAP Package
- Users.
Bundle consumption rules
Control | Details |
---|---|
Consume for each product on a device |
Use this option when the license entitles you to run multiple primary products from a Cloud Pak bundle on the same device. Consumption is calculated separately for each primary product, based on the cores assigned to run it on the device (and then multiplied by the Product conversion ratio), with the total consumption for the license being the sum of the consumption values calculated for each primary product. Because this option takes account of the number of products running on each device, the Consumption tab of the license properties starts each hierarchy from the licensed product. To allow this, the identifying column is renamed Product/device, with the row for the product given a pseudo-Device type of Product. The child rows for each product then identify where the product is running, typically identifying the virtual host, optionally some resource pools, and the actual VM – although of course, a product may run on a stand-alone physical server, needing fewer rows for identification. Only primary products can consume in this mode. With this option selected, there is no way to make a supplementary product consume from the license. This is because it is normal in IBM VPC licenses for supplementary products to be 'no cost extras' that do not consume license entitlements, but are covered by the correct licensing of their primary product. Each primary product may have its own independent Product conversion ratio, which converts the total number of VPCs running that product on a given host (if necessary, capped by the total capacity of the host, so that time-slicing across VMs does not result in over-consumption of the license) to the number of license entitlements consumed. |
Consume once for each device |
This option is for license agreements that allow multiple products to
be installed on the same device, and covered by the one license.
Typically such a license, instead of counting up products, scales
according to the power of the device – that is, for virtual
machines, the more cores that are assigned, the more license
entitlements are required. For that reason, selecting this option
exposes the next control, where you specify the licensing required
for each VPC.
Tip: Keep in mind here that "VPC" is an
umbrella term that means different things in different
contexts:
Because this option measures the power of the
inventory device, and not the number of products running, the
Consumption tab of the license properties
starts each hierarchy from the logical device, most commonly the
virtual host on which guest VMs are running.
|
VPC to license ratio |
This control only appears if you select the option to Consume once for each device. Use the two spin controls to create a ratio between the number of virtual processor cores, and the number of license entitlements consumed by that number of VPCs. These ratios vary by product, so check license terms carefuly. For example, suppose that the license agreement for a particular product says that the "license" (meaning one license entitlement) allows you to run 2 VPCs, your correct setting is 2 : 1. The setting requires whole numbers, so an agreement that said "each VPC consumes 1/3 of a license" must be expressed as 3 : 1. If the license has been created automatically using the appropriate downloaded Product Use Rights Library (PURL) and SKU Library, this ratio is set by the libraries, and best practice is to leave the setting other than in exceptional circumstances (for example, by special agreement with IBM). |
Consumption per device, user, or access
The following controls are available:
Control | Details |
---|---|
This license does not have contracts with license consumption rules | This label indicates that this license has no linked contract attached to it that has applicable license consumption rules. License consumption rules can be inherited from a contract, or specified in this section. This label appears when the contract attached to this license has no license consumption rules. See Contracts Tab. |
Inherit application license consumption rules from contract |
Indicates the name of the linked contract from which this license can
inherit license consumption rules and rights. When you select this check box, you instruct
IT Asset Management to dynamically inherit license use rights and rules from an
automatically-selected linked contract. If a license is linked to multiple contracts, the
license inherits use rights and rules from one of the linked contracts based on the
following conditions:
|
Allocations consume license entitlements |
This option is not available for Microsoft User CALs and Microsoft Device CALs as it is automatically selected for these license types. |
Access granted to users, or usage, consumes license entitlements |
|
Consume one entitlement for each user or Consume one entitlement per device owned by each user | This group of radio buttons determines, once consumption is triggered,
exactly what quantity is consumed (the "what" of consumption).
Restrictions: These radio buttons are only visible for the license types listed above the table. |
Consume entitlements based on | When it is visible (that is, when Access granted to users, or usage, consumes license entitlements is checked), this control determines exactly what triggers consumption calculation (the "why" of consumption). Choose one of the following values:
As an example, suppose there is a usage record for Sam's computer on May 1, and the time limit is set to 90 days. When you examine status on July 29, Sam's computer is consuming from the license. Look again on August 1, and now it is not consuming, because the usage record is outside the rolling 90-day time window. This will be true even though Sam may be listed for access in the App-V data. |
Usage time limit in days | This control appears when you choose to Consume entitlements based on Usage within the time limit. Enter or spin up the number of days (immediately prior to the current compliance calculation) to examine for a record of usage. The default value (90 days) is a typical provision in such licenses, but check the details of your license agreement. Note: For CALs, the usage record consumes a license only if the
accessing device record (the device through which the server
application was accessed) matches an inventory device record.
|
Clients accessing servers that consume this license will be exempted from CALs (No CALs required) | Available only for the following license types:
When selected, this option exempts users from consuming a CAL
entitlement for accessing the server application linked to this license.
Note: For this exemption to work, the Product and
Version must have matching values on both the
consumed server license and the CAL.
|
Cloud service providers
The following check boxes are available. At least one of these check box must be selected; you may also select more than one of these check boxes, in which case all your selections apply simultaneously. For example, if you select both On-premises and Any cloud provider, any inventory device may consume from this license, regardless of where it is hosted, since you allowed both alternatives at once. Default values vary by license type, and are listed below.
Control | Details |
---|---|
On-premises |
Inventory devices may consume from this license under either of the
following circumstances:
|
Any cloud service provider |
Inventory devices (which must be virtual machines) can consume from
this license when their Hosted in is set to the name of any individual cloud service provider.
Tip: This applies even for cloud service providers
who are added in future, after this setting has been chosen for
this license.
|
Selected cloud service providers |
This selection enables the list of all available cloud service providers registered in IT Asset Management (some names are provided by default, and others may be defined within your enterprise, as described in IT Asset Management Settings: Cloud Service Providers Tab). You may select as many of the providers as required. For points-based licenses, you can create a points rule for each cloud service provider, so that this one license may apply to multiple cloud service providers, with each having the appropriate points values applied (provided that all the other license properties are suitably aligned). To consume from this license, inventory devices must have a matching cloud service provider selected as the Hosted in value. For example, if you selected Google and Microsoft Azure from this list, devices with either of these names as their Hosted in may consume from this license; but devices with Hosted in = Amazon Web Services may not. |
Consumption settings for cloud service providers |
This section appears only for the following license types, for each
of which specialized controls may appear (described next):
Note: If the following controls are set to zero, then the special
consumption calculations for cloud instances are disabled, and
consumption is calculated as if for on-premises devices. This
may be useful if you are hosting devices in a private cloud for
which Oracle licenses are not applicable (Oracle applies their
cloud license terms only to "approved" cloud service providers). If you need to mix licensing in both a private cloud and
an Oracle-approved cloud service provider, use separate
licenses for each, and control the applicability to the
different environments with the Selected cloud service providers controls.
The available controls for Oracle licenses
are:
|
Consumption settings for Microsoft Azure |
This section appears only for the following license types:
The section initially contains a single check box: Azure Hybrid Benefit / license
mobility. When this check box is selected (and to
the extent that the license is covered by active Microsoft Software
Assurance), sharing of license entitlements is permitted between a
product installed both on-premises and on an instance hosted by an
approved cloud service provider — although the precise nature of
this sharing depends on all of:
For example:
|
- When the VMs are linked to a host server. This is the normal case, and applies in (almost) all environments, whether in your on-premises data center or in the cloud. However, virtual machines hosted in the cloud do not report a host unless they are hosted on a dedicated server. Examples of such exceptional environments include virtual machines running on either an AWS dedicated host, or an Azure dedicated host.
- When the license is taking advantage of Microsoft Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB), and additional data is gathered by the latest Azure connector. This connector provides sufficient additional information to allow VMs to consume from the license even though we do not receive inventory from the virtual host, and so provides another exception to the general rule of the first case.
Default cloud service providers by license type
Licenses created before the availability of the cloud service provider settings, and those not in the list below, receive the default setting On-premises and Any cloud service provider. There is no need to retrofit this value to existing records: in the absence of other input, it is provided automatically.
License type(s) | Default selection |
---|---|
IBM PVU
Tip: Points rule provided.
IBM VPC |
|
|
|
All other license types |
|
IT Asset Management (Cloud)
Current