Managing your IBM z System licensing charges - Types of License Charges (2 of 5)

IBM uses a variety of license models and below I've given a brief description of the types of license charges you'll likely come across.

Advanced Workload License Charges (AWLC), including Integrated Workload Pricing (IWP), when appropriate

When you elect AWLC for a particular operating system on a CPC, all of that operating system family's sub-capacity eligible MLC products are licensed under AWLC on that CPC. Non-sub-capacity eligible MLC products are considered FWLC products and their pricing is a fixed, monthly charge unrelated to the capacity of the CPC on which they run. Sub-capacity AWLC pricing applies to eligible z/OS® and z/TPF software products and their associated middleware products when running on a zEnterprise® EC12 (zEC12) or zEnterprise 196 (z196) CPC. Sub-capacity AWLC pricing also applies when running on a zEnterprise BC12 (zBC12) or zEnterprise 114 (z114) CPC, but only if that CPC is in an actively coupled Parallel Sysplex® that consists only of zEnterprise CPCs. 

More information about AWLC pricing is available at www.ibm.com/systems/z/swprice/mlc/awlc.html. For details about IWP, see the SCRT user's guide, Using the Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool.

Integrated Workload Pricing (IWP) is an enhancement to AWLC that enables qualifying z/OS customers to add a selected set of workloads to an existing LPAR without increasing the sub-capacity value of other products already running in that LPAR.

Entry Workload License Charges (EWLC)

When you elect EWLC pricing for a particular operating system on a CPC, all of that operating system family's MLC products that are sub-capacity eligible are licensed under EWLC on that CPC. The MLC products for that operating system on that CPC that are not sub-capacity eligible are charged a capacity-based price using the zELC pricing metric (for z800 CPCs) or the Tiered EWLC pricing metric (for z10™ BC, z9® BC, and z890 CPCs).

More information about EWLC pricing is available at www.ibm.com/systems/z/swprice/mlc/ewlc.html.

Advanced Entry Workload License Charges (AEWLC)

When you elect AEWLC for a particular operating system on a CPC, all of that operating system family's sub-capacity eligible MLC products are licensed under AEWLC on that CPC. The MLC products for that operating system on that CPC that are not sub-capacity eligible are charged a capacity-based price using the Tiered EWLC pricing metric. Sub-capacity AEWLC pricing applies to eligible z/OS, z/TPF, and z/VSE® software products and their associated middleware products when running on a zBC12 or z114 CPC.

Integrated Workload Pricing (IWP) is an enhancement to AEWLC that enables qualifying z/OS customers to add a selected set of workloads to an existing LPAR without increasing the sub-capacity value of other products already running in that LPAR.

More information about AEWLC pricing is available at www.ibm.com/systems/z/swprice/mlc/aewlc.htmlmlc/aewlc.html. For details about IWP, see the SCRT user's guide, Using the Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool.

Midrange Workload License Charges (MWLC)

When you elect MWLC pricing for the z/VSE operating system on a CPC, those z/VSE MLC products that are sub-capacity eligible are licensed under MWLC on that CPC. MWLC pricing applies only to the z/VSE (Version 4 or higher) operating system and certain z/VSE middleware programs. On System z10® BC or System z9® BC CPCs, all other z/VSE programs will be priced according to Tiered Entry Workload License Charges (TWLC). On zEnterprise EC12, zEnterprise 196, System z10 EC, or System z9 EC CPCs, all other z/VSE programs will be priced according to either Flat Workload License Charges, Graduated Monthly License Charges, or Extended License Charges.

More information about MWLC pricing is available at www.ibm.com/systems/z/swprice/mlc/mwlc.html.

System z New Application License Charges (zNALC)

zNALC is a monthly license charge pricing metric available on IBM® z/Architecture® servers running z/OS and offers a reduced price for z/OS on LPARs where qualified applications are running. zNALC pricing applies to the z/OS base feature and z/OS priced features (with the exception of HCM and HLASM Toolkit, which have flat pricing). zNALC is available for z/OS on LPARs dedicated to qualified applications, among other requirements. Similar to Workload License Charges and Entry Workload License Charges, customers may implement zNALC in either full capacity or sub-capacity mode.

Any logical partition (LPAR) that is designated as a zNALC LPAR must follow the naming convention ZNALxxxx where xxxx is any letters or numbers. Alternatively, customers who prefer not to change LPAR names to qualify for zNALC pricing (and are running z/OS V1.6 or later) can specify the LICENSE=ZNALC IPL parameter in the active IEASYSxx PARMLIB member to indicate a zNALC system. The LICENSE=ZNALC IPL parameter will be available through APAR OA20314. However, the complete zNALC solution for the SMF data collected from a z/OS system initialized in this manner requires SCRT V14.1.0 or higher.

More information about zNALC pricing is available in More about zNALC pricing and at www.ibm.com/systems/z/swprice/mlc/znalc.html.

Select Application License Charges (SALC)

SALC pricing is available solely for WebSphere® MQ for System z and only on CPCs with one of the sub-capacity MLC pricing metrics. It is designed to allow customers to license MQ under product utilization rather than the sub-capacity MLC pricing metrics. SCRT still reports MSU values for these products but the reported values are not used to calculate the license charges.

On Friday I'll be looking at Mobile Workload Pricing and it's affect.

Charles Johnson

Principal Consultant