Processor Value Unit (PVU) Sub-capacity licensing lets you license an eligible software product for less than the full capacity of your server or group of servers. It provides the licensing granularity needed to leverage various multi-core chip and virtualization technologies. For an overview and Q&A describing sub-capacity licensing and PVU licensing see the links on the right hand navigation bar under Essentials.
The sub-capacity software licensing terms are documented in the International Passport Advantage Agreement (IPAA) Attachment for Sub-Capacity Licensing Terms (Sub-capacity Licensing Attachment). For this Attachment and Virtualization Capacity License Counting Rules using Eligible Virtualization Environments, see the links on the right under Essentials.
A summary of the sub-capacity licensing requirements, related offering documentation and descriptions of full capacity and sub-capacity licensing follows.
Customers must
Full-capacity licensing
Unless you have deployed Eligible Sub-Capacity Products according to the sub-capacity terms, you must obtain PVU Proof of Entitlements (PoEs) for the maximum number of activated** physical processor cores in the hardware environment made available to or managed by the software product.
**Activated processor cores are physical processor cores that are available for use in a server. They include processor cores:
- That are activated (available for use) when the server is shipped by the manufacturer
- That are activated subsequently through activation codes purchased from the server manufacturer by the customer
- Whose capacity can be limited by the customer through virtualization technologies, operating system commands and BIOS settings.
Sub-capacity Licensing
Customers must accept the terms of the IBM International Passport Advantage Agreement Attachment for Sub-Capacity Licensing Terms (Attachment), and must obtain PVU Proofs of Entitlement (PoEs) for the maximum processor core capacity available to an Eligible Sub-Capacity Product when deployed in an Eligible Virtualization Environment.
Customers must use the IBM License Metric Tool unless they meet the exceptions described in the Attachment.
For additional information regarding PVU sub-capacity licensing, including terms and IBM License Metric Tool ordering information, please refer to the information and links in this website.