When you have signed a sub-capacity IPLA agreement, then your sub capacity products are 'tied' to a different number than your installed capacity. As someone pointed out earlier <http://ibm.com/zseries/swprice/zipla/> is the best reference for customers.
There are different types of IPLA products, that can be found on this page <http://ibm.com/zseries/library/swpriceinfo/ipla.html>. In general, the DB2 related products will be charged based on the DB2 MSUs, CICS products based on CICS MSUs, and the same for IMS. Some products record SMF89 data and they are changed as other Variable sub-cap products (WebSphere, Fault Analyzer, App Monitor, etc). Still others are charged based on z/OS MSUs rather than the full box. If you assume your licenses are correct today, then this becomes really important before the next upgrade. All the MSU numbers are computed to Value Units. Let's consider DB2 Util Suite. Without IPLA Sub-Cap you have already paid for install MSUs on the machines where DB2 runs. With the sub-cap IPLA you only need to pay for the MSUs of DB2's own usage. It may growth with your upgrade, but it is not until the DB2 MSUs are higher than your previously installed capacity that you'll need more DB2 Util Suite Value Units. I recently completed just this analysis for a client. They have 840 Value Units for their installed capacity of 3,848 MSUs spread across 6 machines. The DB2 MSUs from the SCRT reports are 3,253 MSUs. That converts to a requirement of 695 Value Units. So when they next upgrade, they already have paid for 840-695=145 Value Units they do not need when they are sub-capacity IPLA. Those value units will be used as DB2 continues to grow with increased usage and growth in the business. You need to do a similar analysis for each product (or you could license a tool that reports this status with each set month's analysis.) When this was announced in August 10, 2004 your IBM may have told you it was not important to you. That was probably true, you already the value units necessary for your installed capacity. But you need to evaluate sub-cap IPLA with each upgrade of any machine. Finally, Value Units belong to the enterprise, not to the site or to a particular pricing plex. You can "transfer" them within your company. If the data center in New York has excess value units and you need them at the Chicago data center you can transfer them. Best regards, Al Sherkow, I/S Management Strategies, Ltd. Consulting Expertise on Capacity Planning, Performance Tuning, WLC, LPARs, IRD and LCS Software Seminars on IBM SW Pricing, LPARs, and IRD Voice: +1 414 332-3062 Web: www.sherkow.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
