On July 1, 2008, IBM announced the availability of the IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT), and made improvements to the Sub-capacity licensing offering
As part of the announced availability of ILMT, IBM has lifted the temporary suspension of the requirement to use the IBM license metric tool to track distributed Sub-capacity software license requirements. Customers have 90 days from August 1, 2008, the physical media general availability date, to install and begin using ILMT. See the IBM License Metric Tool link on the right hand nav bar.
The following virtualization technologies are now eligible for Sub-capacity licensing:
- Single Server for IBM PowerVM Multiple Shared Processor Pools
- Single Server for VMware ESX versions 3.0, and 3.5
- Server Cluster (Farm) for VMware ESX version 2.5
- Server Cluster for VMware ESX versions 3.0 and 3.5
- Single Server for VMware Server 1.0
- VMotion's mobility functionality for VMware ESX versions 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5
- VMware ESXi 3.5 including Single Server, Server Cluster, and VMotion
Note that eligibility for Server Clusters is limited to those servers located in a single, physical customer site. Also, eligibility for VMotion's mobility is limited to the movement of an active Virtual Machine (VM) between physical servers, where the VM is not running in two servers simultaneously.
IBM announced it’s plan to add support, by the end of June 2009, in ILMT for the eligible VMware virtualization offerings above, which are not currently supported.
All statements regarding future IBM direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.