IBM license hard to adopt: Users

Computerworld - Eighteen months after IBM introduced a new licensing model aimed at reducing mainframe software costs, some users and analysts say moving to it may be more of a challenge and less beneficial in the short term than some might have previously anticipated.

That's because companies that hope to lower mainframe costs by moving to IBM's Workload License Charges need to do extensive software capacity planning and asset management beforehand if they want to see any benefits, they said.

"Making the decision to move to WLC is not a trivial task, but one that requires an understanding of workload and software configuration," said Lillian Cooper, president of Share Inc., a large-systems user group in Chicago. "Companies will have to evaluate whether the software savings opportunity, in the face of rising software costs, is worth the extra effort," she added.

IBM didn't respond to repeated requests for comment.

According to Cooper, moreover, IBM's decision to delay a license management and compliance technology called IBM License Manager—which was supposed to have become available last fall—was due to user requests for changes in that technology. But the interim manual reporting implementation makes WLC harder to manage, Cooper said.

AT A GLANCE
With Workload License Charges, users can: PAY for software based on workload capacity requirements, which may not necessarily be the full capacity of the machine ADD hardware capacity for new workloads and not have software charges increase for existing workloads BUY reserve hardware capacity for future growth with no increase in software prices MANAGE sudden spikes in workload without having to pay extra software fees Source: IBM

Keen Understanding Required

If implemented correctly, the model can yield "very substantial" cost savings over traditional capacity models, said Dan Kaberon, parallel sysplex manager at Hewitt Associates LLC in Lincolnshire, Ill.

"But one has to have a clear understanding of the peaks and valleys of workload demand," he noted. Hewitt has purchased several of IBM's zSeries mainframes and has switched all of its software to the new model, but Kaberon declined to specify how much Hewitt has saved.

Doing proper software capacity planning is crucial to taking advantage of WLC, said David Ochroch, an analyst at Reiner Associates Inc., a San Francisco-based contract management consulting firm.

Under WLC, users can define the system capacity they need for a particular workload and pay software fees only for that defined capacity. The approach is far more equitable than previous capacity models, in which users paid for software based on the overall size of the system. The larger the box, the higher the software cost, irrespective of actual use, Ochroch said.