Virtual processor core licensing

A virtual processor core (VPC) is a unit of measurement that is used to determine the licensing cost of IBM products. The VPC is based on the number of virtual cores (vCPUs) that are available to the product.

A vCPU is assigned to a virtual machine (VM). If the server is not partitioned for virtual machines, then the CPU is assigned to a physical processor.

Subcapacity licensing and the License Metric Tool

Through the IBM sub-capacity licensing arrangement, IBM customers can purchase licenses for a fraction of the full machine capacity. While this service can often reduce costs and increase flexibility, you need to be aware of the steps necessary to qualify for sub-capacity licensing. For more information, see Passport Advantage® Virtualization Capacity (Subcapacity) Licensing, Virtualization Capacity License Counting Rules and IBM Eligible Public Cloud BYOSL policy.

You can use the License Metric Tool to determine how many PCs are available for your IBM product.

Fixed VPC value

The licensing model of some IBM products defines how those product instances consume a fixed number of PCs. For example, when they run in warm standby mode. To report metric utilization by such product instances, assign them the VPC Warm Standby metric. For more information, see Fixed PVU and VPC values for instances running in the warm standby mode.

Scenarios

How you configure Db2 determines how you calculate the number of vCPUs that you need. The following scenarios explain some of the possible configurations of Db2 and how to calculate the CPU requirements.

Note: These calculations are based on sample values and should be treated as examples.

Scenario 1: VPC on a physical server

IBM MQ software is installed on a server that has two processors. Each processor has 8 physical cores which gives 16 cores in total. The number of vCPUs to license is 16.

Scenario 2: VPC on two VMs

Two VMs are deployed on a server that has two processors. Each processor has 8 physical cores, which results in 16 cores in total. Each VM is assigned 10 vCPUs.

WebSphere software is installed only on the first VM and has access to 10 vCPUs. The number of vCPUs to license is 10. IBM MQ software is installed on both VMs and has access to 20 vCPUs. Because the number of physical cores is lower than the number of vCPUs that are assigned to the VMs, the number of vCPUs to license is capped to 16.

Scenario 3: A VPC in a virtual environment where the VM manager is not defined

Two VMs are deployed on a server that has two processors. Each processor has 8 cores, which results in 16 physical cores in total. The first VM is assigned 12 vCPUs. The second VM is assigned 10 vCPUs, which results in 22 vCPUs in total. IBM MQ software is installed on both VMs.

If a connection to the VM manager is not defined, the License Metric Tool does not have access to information about the number of sockets and physical cores where the VMs are deployed. It has access only to information about the number of vCPUs that each VM is assigned. The sum of vCPUs to which IBM MQ software has access is greater than the number of physical cores that are available on the server.

If a connection to the VM manager is not defined, then the number of vCPUs to license is 22. If the connection is defined, then 22 vCPUs are capped to 16 physical cores and the number of vCPUs to license is 16.