Managing your IBM z System licensing charges - What is Mobile Workload Pricing and its affect? (3 of 5)

Defining Mobile Workload Pricing

Mobile Workload Pricing was created by IBM in 2014 as mobile applications began to develop within organizations, with more transactions being mobile based, a break is given based on certain criteria.

•       Mobile Workload Reporting Tool(MWRT) was developed to provide the calculations

•        Based upon Rolling 4 Hour Average, then discounts applied

MWRT will calculate the 4-hour rolling average of the reported mobile transaction general purpose processor time consumed by the Mobile Workload Pricing Defining Programs and subtract 60% of those values from the traditional sub-capacity MSUs for all sub-capacity eligible programs running in the same LPAR(s) as the mobile workloads, on an hour-by-hour basis, per LPAR. The program values for the same hour are summed across all of the LPARs (and any z/OS guest systems running under z/VM®) in which the program runs to create an adjusted sub-capacity value for the program, for the given machine, for each hour. MWRT will determine the billable MSU peak for a given program on a machine using the adjusted MSU values.

On Monday I'll be talking about using reporting to manage your monthly license charges. In the meantime don't forget to sign up for my live webinar 'Top 5 z Systems Capacity Issues' on Sept 13  

https://www.metron-athene.com/services/webinars/capacity-management-webinars.html

Charles Johnson

Principal Consultant

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

Managing your IBM z System licensing charges - Monthly license charge components ( 1 of 5)

Monthly license charge components
z System license charges are a large component of the IT budget so this blog series will be looking at what you can do to manage those costs efficiently. I'll be covering how to stay on top of the charges throughout the month, what safeguards are in place to control the cost and what potential solutions, remedies and actions can be taken.

I'll start with a look at the type of license charges.

Types of License Charges

•        MLC or WLC (Monthly or Workload License Charges)

–       The charge is based upon usage of an LPAR

–       Aggregates usage for the complete environment

–       MSUs of z Systems Subsystem Components consumed

When you elect WLC pricing for a particular operating system on a CPC, all of that operating system family's MLC products are licensed under WLC on that CPC. Sub-capacity eligible MLC products are called Variable Workload License Charges (VWLC) products. Non-sub-capacity eligible MLC products are called Flat Workload License Charges (FWLC) products and their pricing is a fixed monthly charge unrelated to the capacity of the CPC on which they run.

•        CMLC (Country Multiplex License Charges) or CMP (Country Multiplex Pricing)

–       Sub-capacity offering that allows clients to use their z Systems capacity within a given country with the objective of creating a flexible, country-wide z Systems platform.

Clients can configure and balance workloads more easily without the constraints of Sysplex aggregation rules and many of the limitations of previous reporting methodologies.

A Multiplex is the collection of all eligible IBM z Systems machines or Sysplexes or both within a single country, measured as one machine for purposes of software sub-capacity reporting.

On Wednesday I'll be looking at the types of license in more detail. In the meantime don’t forget to sign up for my webinar ‘Top 5 z Systems^® Capacity Issues on September 13^th https://www.metron-athene.com/services/webinars/capacity-management-webinars.html

Charles Johnson

Principal Consultant