Leveraging IBM License Metric to Ensure Licensing Compliance for IBM Planning Analytics

Understanding the usage and utilization of IBM Planning Analytics Licenses can be a challenge for many customers. With the cost of non-compliance being potentially very high, it is important for companies to ensure that they understand and manage the usage of software licenses in their environment.

The IBM Planning Analytics licensing model is not always very straight forward, especially in legacy environments. The original Applix model was based on the number of ports (user able to access the service). After the move to Cognos and subsequently IBM, the model transformed to be a combination of PVU (Processor Value Unit) and end user role based. Understanding the number of PVUs required and clearly identifying usage can be a major challenge.

This problem is magnified with the emergence of cloud computing and increased use of virtualization. While on traditional physical servers the PVU count is set and harder to change, with virtual machines the resources allocated to a server can change with the execution of a few key strokes.

While an audit can easily identify the current number of users and their role within a piece of software, tracking the resources used by a virtual server is an ongoing process. This is where the where the IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) comes in.

Customer who have been through an audit and have virtual servers are normally asked to install ILMT within 90 days of the end of the audit. Customers are also required to send IBM reports after an agreed time frame.

So what is ILMT? The software itself is a tool that scans targeted servers and identifies what IBM software is installed and for virtual servers it identifies the resources used and compares that to the specified license capacity. This is done using scans. The results are then displayed in reports. Both the scans and the reports can be scheduled. These are the reports sent to IBM.

What Do I need to install ILMT? There are several things needed but a high level you need a separate install location, its own DB and an ILMT license which can be obtained for free form IBM.

Can I get help with ILMT? ACG is able to help you through all of the steps from obtaining a license all the way through to scheduling and distributing the reports to IBM.