I'll run through the list, in no particular order:
1. An IBM Enterprise License Agreement (ELA), and other IBM agreements
which incorporate ELA terms and conditions, is/are a way to get some
additional value from your MLC. In very simple terms, if you can reasonably
forecast your MLC and make a financial commitment to some particular MSU
growth path, IBM provides some "coupons" (or credits) which can be used to
acquire IBM "One-Time Charge" (OTC/IPLA) software licenses. The more the
growth commitment, the more the credits. (Note that the credits must be
spent immediately, upon contract execution, so perhaps credits isn't the
right word.)
In my personal opinion those credits should be treated as reductions in the
MLC, especially if you're calculating chargebacks and such.
I strongly recommend exploring this sort of licensing with your friendly
IBM representative. It's good for you, it's good for IBM, and it's very
easy to do considering that you almost certainly already have capacity
forecasts.
2. If you are a qualified business partner (such as a qualified software
developer for z/OS, z/VSE, etc.) or academic institution, you are likely
eligible for sharp reductions in MLC through such programs as PartnerWorld
and the System z Academic Initiative.
3. If you would like to run a new workload that qualifies for zNALC
licensing, you can receive a major reduction in z/OS MLC. DB2 Value Unit
Edition licensing may also be available for that workload.
4. If you would like to run a qualifying new System z Solution Edition
workload, you would receive a single price quotation for all hardware
("MIPS"), hardware maintenance, software licensing, and software
subscription/support for up to 5 years. Obviously there is an MLC reduction
incorporated into that quotation.
5. Standard MLC terms and conditions already include a number of discounts,
and more seem to get invented. A few examples:
a. MLC pricing is strongly "curved." The more you use, the lower the price
for each incremental MSU. (And recently IBM added more tiers to maintain
that basic principle.)
b. It's variable under VWLC, MWLC, and AWLC. If you have a "quiet" month,
you automatically get a discount.
c. Likewise, it's subcapacity. If you only run MQ in one LPAR, then you
only pay for that LPAR (under VWLC, MWLC, AWLC, zNALC, or Solution
Edition).
d. You're always in control, through defined capacity settings ("softcaps")
for individual LPARs and for groups of LPARs. As long as you know how to
twist the softcap "knobs," surprises are never possible.
e. It applies only to real work (dev/test/prod). For example, there's no
additional charge for a real disaster, or for cold or warm standby, or for
a proscribed number of disaster rehearsals (CBU), or for such events as
relocating machines between data centers (CPE).
f. For the past 10 years there have been "technology dividends." Sometimes
these dividends have been in the form of MSU reductions on new machine
models. Other times they've been in the form of new licensing (e.g. VWLC in
2000 and AWLC in 2010).
g. Specialty engines (zAAPs, zIIPs, ICFs) do not incur IBM software license
charges. Software vendors, including IBM, continue to make more of their
products eligible to run on specialty engines.
h. Specialty accelerators, notably the new Smart Analytics Optimizer, can
end up effectively reducing MLC, at least on an equal performance
comparison.
i. IBM is doing a very good job reducing path length in many MLC products
with new releases, notably z/OS, DB2 10, IMS, and (especially if you
exploit threadsafe) CICS.
6. IBM tries to be reasonable. For example, if you're migrating from one
machine to another (such as a machine upgrade), and you need a short period
when you're running MLC on both machines but are still supporting the same
workloads (same number of users, same transaction volumes, etc.), you can
request a short-term waiver on one of the machines (generally the smaller
one). IBM does not promise to honor such requests but will consider them in
good faith.
As always, I do not speak for IBM. Which means I might be more
entertaining.
- - - - -
Timothy Sipples
Resident Enterprise Architect
STG Value Creation & Complex Deals Team
IBM Growth Markets (Based in Singapore)
E-Mail: [email protected]
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