Peak Consumed

IT Asset Management (Cloud)

The Peak consumed field shows the highest consumption quantity identified for the license (a high-water mark). The peak value applies whether you are using full capacity licensing, sub-capacity licensing, container licensing, or even (based on mixed inventory sources) a mixture licensing methods. For more about the relationships between various consumption fields (with special emphasis on IBM PVU licenses), see Relationships Between Consumption Fields.

Measuring compliance

If the Peak consumed value is higher than the Total entitlements value, the license will be over-utilized (even if the current Raw consumption value is lower than the Total entitlements value), with the Risk reason being Peak consumed quantity greater than purchased. Since either an IBM PVU license or an IBM VPC license is over-utilized if the Peak consumed value is higher than the Total entitlements value, the Peak consumed value is also shown as the Peak consumption since date in the summary on the top right of this tab.

Manual adjustment and audit records

You cannot directly adjust the historical peak value. However, you can (when necessary) adjust various settings that affect the peak value, such as:

• Region assignments for inventory devices can change peak consumption for IBM sub-capacity licenses (use the device properties to assign the device to a location that is within the desired region)
• Exemptions for inventory devices, such as those used for development or training (check license terms)
• Processor and core counts for inventory devices by overriding inventory values where these are incomplete or incorrect in imported inventory
• Assignments of virtual machines to the correct host, where the VM was previously missing a virtual host.

When you make any such adjustment that is relevant to consumption of IBM PVU points or IBM VPC cores, the next full import and compliance calculation reworks the peak calculations for all regions for the entire data retention period. In short, after the next compliance calculation, the regional and overall peak values are updated to reflect your current settings, as if there had never been any need for correction. A suggested practice is to add notes in the Notes field on the Identification tab of the properties for this license to explain such amendments, in case this level of detail is required for an audit.

Tip: IBM requires that you maintain records of peak consumption values for a minimum of two years.

Data sources

There are two ways that the Peak consumed value may be determined for IBM PVU licenses:

1. Baseline data may be imported from ILMT (although this may also be augmented with additional data)
2. Data may be calculated exclusively by IT Asset Management.

Either mode is universally applied to all IBM PVU licenses. Each mode is explained in turn below.

Tip: Only IBM PVU licenses can import baseline data from ILMT. In contrast, consumption for IBM VPC licenses is always calculated by IT Asset Management from available sources, which may include inventory from the FlexNet Inventory Agent, or consumption data imported from the REST API of the IBM License Service, particularly in containerized environments.

1. Data import from ILMT

You may import data (including the peak PVU count) from ILMT. To achieve this, go to the Inventory Settings page, scroll to the IBM PVU scanning section, and ensure that the Enable frequent hardware scanning for IBM sub-capacity license calculations check box is clear (not set).

However, it may occur that an inventory device has software installed that should be licensed under an IBM PVU license, but that device does not appear in ILMT inventory imported into IT Asset Management. Further, it may happen that inventory from this missing device appears in another inventory source, such as in FlexNet inventory. For all such devices found only in 'alternate' inventory sources, license point consumption is calculated separately by IT Asset Management, and then the results are merged with the data imported from ILMT to provide a complete picture of license consumption. (For devices appearing in ILMT and alternate inventory sources, the ILMT results are imported unchanged.)

There is an additional configuration possible. The calculations for the 'alternate' inventory sources may either be full-capacity calculations (the default), or may be sub-capacity calculations (to better align with sub-capacity calculations you are importing from ILMT). This setting is configurable on each individual license: in the license properties sheet, select the Use rights & rules tab, expand the Rights on virtual machines and hosts area, select the radio button for Use sub-capacity license calculations where available, and optionally select Allow sub-capacity licensing for sources other than ....

Tip: In the ILMT import mode, this last setting (checked) is required for sub-capacity calculations from FlexNet inventory, as well as from third-party inventory tools. However, be aware that permission to use the other sources for sub-capacity calculations is very rare when ILMT is your data source; and if you receive such a variation, be sure to record the document using the Documents tab on these license properties.

If this situation of mixed inventory sources applies, IT Asset Management merges the data from ILMT and from the other data source(s), adding the consumption calculated for the alternate inventory source(s) to the peak value imported from ILMT.

In summary, during license consumption calculations in the ILMT import mode, the Peak consumed field is updated to the largest of these values:

• The previous Peak consumed value
• The peak consumption imported from ILMT
• The peak consumption calculated by IT Asset Management summing data from ILMT with data calculated from alternate inventory sources.

Tip: In ILMT data mode, any license deletions must be made in both ILMT and IT Asset Management within the same inventory collection cycle (typically, the same day). For more details, see IBM PVU (license type).

2. Calculations by FlexNet Manager Suite

Under appropriate conditions, and with the approval of IBM, you may use FlexNet Manager Suite to collect and report peak usage values in place of an IBM tool like ILMT. (For details about the IBM requirements, see IBM High-Frequency Scanning and its subtopics.) For the setting to achieve this, navigate to Discovery & Inventory > Settings, scroll to the IBM reporting and archiving settings section, and ensure that the Enable frequent hardware scanning for IBM sub-capacity license calculations check box is set. In this mode, even where you have imported consumption and peak data from ILMT, that information is ignored in calculation of license consumption.

In this 'PVU mode', there are two distinct processes:

• The collection of differential inventory (the locally-installed FlexNet Inventory Agent only reporting if there are hardware changes on its inventory device). The checks for possible changes, and if necessary inventory collection and reporting, happen every 30 minutes by default, following the value you chose in the Inventory Settings page. (This special process is quite independent of the normal, typically daily, collection of software and hardware inventory from the inventory device.)
• The full inventory import and license reconciliation calculation, which recalculates IBM PVU license point consumption (and IBM VPC core count consumption) for the entire period for which historical data is kept (set in the Licensing tab in the Administration > IT Asset Management Settings > General page). This means, for example, that any changes you may make today are normally reflected in the updated Peak consumed value available tomorrow morning (assuming default schedules — or, of course, an operator in the Administrator role can trigger an additional compliance calculation at any time).

Full license reconciliation: For IBM PVU licenses, raw inventory data is merged from all sources as usual, and then FlexNet Manager Suite calculates two numbers for every inventory device linked to the license: the full capacity consumption for the individual inventory device, and its sub-capacity consumption. In the ensuing summing calculations of total license consumption, one or other of these figures is included for each device, with the decision being based on settings in the license properties sheet, on the Use rights & rules tab, in the Rights on virtual machines and hosts area:

• If the radio button Always use full capacity license calculations is selected, the full capacity consumption figure is used for every inventory device.
• If the radio button Use sub-capacity license calculations where available is selected, for every device where inventory was collected by the full (and up-to-date) FlexNet Inventory Agent locally installed, the sub-capacity consumption is included in the summing process. (If, as required, the inventory device has been assigned to a location which is a child of one of the mandatory IBM regions, its sub-capacity consumption is added into its region's subtotal.)
  Tip: If you are using a custom points rule, and that custom rule includes fractions of points (such as "15.25 points per core" for a particular host type), be aware that the fractional results of consumption on all servers are maintained throughout this summing process. Ultimately, rounding up is applied only to the final regional total, where it may be reported to IBM. For example, in an IBM region with just two VMs running software under a PVU license, and using 2 cores (30.5 points) and 5 cores (76.25 points), the regional total is 106.75 points, which is then rounded up to 107 points for the regional report. This is just less than would be the case if rounding were applied to the individual devices (108 points).
  If the inventory device is not yet assigned to an appropriate location, its consumption is included in Devices not assigned to any region, and you should correct its location assignment as soon as practical, and certainly before submitting any report to IBM. In this mode, for inventory devices found in any source other than FlexNet Inventory Agent, the decision rests on the additional check box:
  • If Allow sub-capacity licensing for sources other than IT Asset Management is clear (not selected), the figure used for inventory devices from other (non-approved) inventory sources is their current full capacity number.
  • If Allow sub-capacity licensing for sources other than IT Asset Management is selected (checked, or ticked), the figure used for each inventory device linked to this license is its current sub-capacity number.
    Important: Use this setting with care. It is not normally an option approved by IBM. If you have due cause and approval for this setting, be sure to archive written justification that can be provided in an audit. Also be aware that historical inventory is maintained only for inventory collected by the locally-installed FlexNet Inventory Agent. Therefore, for these other inventory sources, only the figure from the most recent license compliance calculation (whether sub-capacity or full capacity) is available, and used. Normal practice is to ensure that the Allow sub-capacity licensing for sources other than IT Asset Management is clear (not selected).

With the appropriate value for each inventory device selected, the total consumption for all inventory devices within each region is summed to give a new raw consumption number for the region (and, if need be, a number is also calculated for inventory devices that have not yet been assigned to any region). In this 'PVU mode', the raw consumption per region is displayed as Current consumed points. In addition, the reconciliation process also revises the historical peak values for each region, which are displayed as Peak consumed points for each.

Tip: In the unusual case that you have negotiated custom points rules with IBM, and these rules involve fractional points, rounding is applied only to the sum of points for each region.

Then, if the sum of the peaks for all regions (and, if necessary, for unassigned devices) is greater than the previous Peak consumed value, the Peak consumed field is updated to the new total.

Tip: Any non-zero peak for Devices not attached to any region means that your peak calculations are inaccurate, since IBM requires that all IBM PVU points consumption must be calculated within one of its mandatory regions. You should identify those devices on the Consumption tab of these license properties (filter for an unknown Region), and assign each device to an appropriate location. Thereafter, the next license reconciliation reworks the peak values for the entire historical period, assuming that each device assignment to a location applies for the entire period. In particular, notice that these "error bars" of sub-capacity values for devices without locations are only for showing the scale of sub-capacity calculation errors. If you make the mistake of submitting unassigned devices to IBM, they are typically charged at full capacity values.

Licensing for containerization

Special conditions apply for licensing IBM products (such as IBM Cloud Paks) in containerized environments. These licenses are more typically IBM VPC licenses, although IBM PVU licenses may also apply. Consumption data in these environments is typically collected from the IBM License Service, and imported into IT Asset Management to provide you with a 'single pane of glass' to review your license consumption. Regional subtotals for this data do not apply, for which reason the results are shown in two specialized fields:

• Peak container consumption (as at the date shown) shows the highest consumption figure reported worldwide by the IBM License Service in the current period. This number is included in the arithmetic sum of the Peak consumption figures, and is therefore included in this Peak consumed value.
• Current container capacity shows the consumption figures reported most recently by the IBM License Service. This number is included in the arithmetic sum of the Current consumption total, and does not affect this Peak consumed value.

Restrictions

Only available for IBM PVU and IBM VPC licenses. The latest peak value is also shown on the All Licenses page in the Consumed column, being the license metric of interest to IBM for these license types.