Wednesday, 13 September 2017

Managing your IBM z System licensing charges - Ways to Manage Cost (5 of 5)

Today I'll take a look at ways to manage cost and provide a summary of my series.
Some of the ways in which you can look at reducing or managing costs are below and we'll start with zIIP Processors.

zIIP Processors

        Specialty processors for offloading work

        Workloads using zIIP Processors do not factor into the License Charges

        Originally setup for DB2 in 2004

        Work run on zAPPs can run on zIIPs (i.e. Java)

        Third party products can use zIIPs with API licensed from IBM

        Talk to your vendors

Bottom line

        Lowers cost of computing for eligible workloads
To Cap or not to Cap?

Capping the Environment is a means of Manual or Automatic control of resources to ensure the MLC is stable but optimize the system performance.Modification of the LPARs Defined Capacity (DC) to account for workload behavior and the needs of all the LPARs.
Soft Capping Manually

There are some issues with Soft Capping manually:

        Personnel constantly monitoring
        Adjustments may not be made in time
        Possible errors causing unsuspected results
Soft Capping – Automating the Process
Automating Soft Capping makes the process much easier.
        The LPARs’ DCs (Defined Capacity) are dynamically modified by taking into account the behavior and needs of all the LPARs.
        When one LPAR requires capacity to handle an instantaneous workload increase, its  DC can be dynamically increased, temporarily, while other less- busy LPARs can have their DCs reduced  temporarily.
        When the demand for extra capacity has passed, all of the LPAR DCs are returned to their normal levels, based on the CPC DC aggregate.
        Software tools are available to assist in the process
Summary
In summary, in order to manage your IBM z System licensing charges you need to:
        Understand the components of the MLC
        Understand your negotiated pricing mechanism

Check out our Resources section for some great white papers and on-demand webinars on z Systems  https://www.metron-athene.com/resources/index.asp

Charles Johnson
Principal Consultant



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