This License Guide provides supplementary information to assist you in deploying the Program(s) you have licensed from IBM through your purchased entitlement. Your license agreement (such as the IBM International Program License Agreement (IPLA) or equivalent and its transaction documents, including the License Information for IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions) is the sole and complete agreement between you and IBM regarding use of the IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions).
If you are not familiar with the concepts of how licensing works for IBM software, see the Licensing Basics, Essential Elements, and Licensing & Compliance pages.
This licensing guide covers the following topics.
-
Licensing Overview
-
Licensing for Disaster Recovery or Backup
-
Supporting Program: IBM Robotic Process Automation
-
-
License Metrics
-
License Reporting
-
Accessing the software
-
Advanced Features
Licensing Overview
IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions is available to clients who have entitlement through purchasing part numbers from IBM directly, or through IBM business partners.
IBM offers IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions license subscriptions[1].
Different part numbers are available for purchase depending on your usage pattern and the capabilities of IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions that are required. You can choose from the following products:
-
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, which enables you to develop Business Services that use rules, decisions, test scenarios and workflow for straight through processing to orchestrate execution.
-
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition, which enables you to develop Business Services that use rules, decisions, test scenarios and stateful workflow in addition to straight through processing.
More information on the capabilities and components of IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions can be found in the Advanced features.
|
Note
|
The different product components are available for evaluation on a single-user workstation in a development environment, through the IBM Developer Program for Open Editions. If you decide to go further in deploying solutions, proper entitlements are required as described by the license terms. |
For both products, IBM Decision Manager Open Edition and IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition, clients can expect the following:
-
The different parts reflect different levels of entitlement for product capabilities.
-
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition includes the subset of BAMOE functionality to be able to develop and orchestrate decision and rule based Business Services.
-
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition includes all functionality available in IBM Decision Manager Open Edition and additional functionality to be able to develop stateful workflow Business Services. For example, Management console is only available in this product.
-
-
Subscription includes entitlements to run the purchased capabilities in containers or virtual machines.
-
This solution is currently not available as a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering.
-
While active, the subscription entitles clients to use and receive support for the commercially available releases.
-
While maintaining at least one active subscription, each and every active instance or installation of the software requires active subscriptions.
-
BAMOE components and Business Services you build must include the license tracking annotations, see Tracking license use in ILMT or Tracking license use in Kubernetes, depending on your development environment.
Licensing for Disaster Recovery or Backup
When considering backup installations, active licenses are required for backup copies that are running simultaneously with the primary installation. Inactive or idling backup copies typically do not need extra licenses. In-depth information can be found in the Backup and Disaster Recovery Licensing Guide.
You can find the latest LI information for the available products, parts, and software versions in the License Information (LI) for IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions.
Supporting Program: IBM Robotic Process Automation
Subscriptions for IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions include access to IBM Robotic Process Automation as a Supporting program.
Through the Supporting program IBM grants limited access to (IBM Robotic Process Automation) at no additional charge on the condition that the program is only used in conjunction with (and only to the extent necessary to support) the components of IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions.
Included components
The following IBM Robotic Process Automation components are included in the supporting program:
-
Unattended Bot Agent
-
IBM Robotic Process Automation Environment
-
IBM Robotic Process Automation Studio
Limitations
Regardless of the number of entitlements obtained to IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions, the entitlement to IBM Robotic Process Automation components is limited to:
-
IBM Robotic Process Automation Environment: 1 Virtual Server
-
IBM Robotic Process Automation Unattended Bot Agent: 1 Concurrent Connection
Usage of IBM Robotic Process Automation is only permitted in traditional installations and does not inlcude container-based installations.
You will require separate entitlement to IBM Robotic Process Automation if you need additional entitlements.
License Metrics
IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions offerings are licensed on a capacity basis. Clients purchase entitlements for the number of Virtual Processor Cores (VPCs) that will be used by the components in (IBM Decision Manager Open Edition and/or IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition).
Virtual processor core (VPC) is a unit of measurement that is used to determine the licensing cost of IBM products. When you license a virtual machine (VM), VPC is based on the number of virtual cores that are assigned to the VM. One VPC license is required for every core that is available to the IBM program.
In short, IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions deployments are licensed by Virtual Processor Core (VPC), where generally, 1 VPC = 1 physical core or 1 virtual core.
Regarding the usage of the product in association with the entitled number of VPCs:
-
Active subscriptions allow product deployments into as many environments as clients choose, as long as they do not exceed the total number of VPCs they have purchased.
-
The number of entitlements must cover the highest expected usage of VPCs during peak periods.
-
Clients are responsible for ensuring they do not exceed their deployment entitlement.
Additional information, can be found at IBM Licensing Metrics.
License Reporting
The IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) tracks which software programs are installed on particular physical hardware or in VMs entitled under VPCs. IBM License Service collects and measures license usage of products deployed in Kubernetes. Depending on your environment the tool or service provide reports that can be presented to IBM when compliance around entitlement capacity is requested.
When installing IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions in containers:
-
The container size specifies the CPU-limit of the container. This is reported as the deployment size of the container instance for IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions. If no CPU-limit is set for the container, then the reported size of the container is set to be the size of the worker node where the container instance is deployed.
-
Container deployments of the product components must use IBM License Service to report on their deployment for licensing usage. The IBM License Service needs to be deployed on Kubernetes. For more information see Tracking BAMOE License use Kubernetes
When installing IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions in Virtual Machines (VMs):
-
the size of the Virtual Machine will determine the size that needs to be entitled. Licensing is unaffected if multiple other products are deployed in the same Virtual Machine.
-
Deployments in Virtual Machines need to use IBM License Management Tool (ILMT) or other approved tools for tracking deployments in sub-capacity environments.
-
For additional information on how ILMT tracks deployments of VPC metrics in Virtual Machines, refer to the Documentation for License Metric Tool - Virtual processor core (VPC).
IBM clients are responsible for:
-
Deploying and configuring IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions in line with their license entitlement.
-
Ensuring container deployments of BAMOE and Business Services built with BAMOE are reporting correctly to IBM License Service.
-
Ensuring that if installing into virtual machines, that ILMT or other tools are correctly configured to track installations.
Accessing the software
There are no activation keys for using IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions.
To access the product purchased, clients should log in to IBM Passport Advantage and download the product install images they want to use.
IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions offers downloadable resources for installing on-premise and certified container images for deployment into supported Kubernetes environments.
Available supporting programs are also available for download from Passport Advantage.
Advanced features
Certain advanced features of BAMOE developed by IBM, are not part of the Open Source repository. The following table describes them:
| Component | Description | Offering |
|---|---|---|
BAMOE Canvas |
A standalone web application that provides authoring and testing tools for Decisions and Processes in your browser. Business Analysts will find this particularly helpful. Developers may prefer to use the BAMOE Developer Tools for VS Code which provides the same features in addition to enterprise developer features. |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Developer Tools for VS Code |
An integration with Microsoft VS Code editor provides the tools to create, edit, test, and visualize business processes (BPMN), decisions (DMN) and test scenarios (SceSim). These tools, combined with existing Java extensions, provide a fully integrated and consistent workspace for Business Service developers. |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Accelerators |
A feature used to rapidly create a functioning project starting with a business process or a decision file and adding the necessary files and locations to build and deploy Business Services. Each new project will contain instructions in a README file, an Apache Maven |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Maven repository |
An image or a zip file which contains all the third-party libraries referenced by core BAMOE components. It can be installed in an artifact repository or locally. It ensures that component versions and references are maintained with supported versions. |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Management Console |
A Web application that provides a view into a running process in your Business Services. You can view which step a process is in while it is running, trigger new processes, and interact with user/human tasks via forms. You can also plan and manage the migration of running processes via the BAMOE Process Instance Migration (PIM) Add-on integration with the Console. |
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Quarkus Dev UI extension |
Tools and views that can be used during development, to interact and view Business Services. These tools run locally and are accessible in your browser. The BAMOE Quarkus Dev UI extension is built upon the existing Quarkus DevUI. |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Spring Boot Web Console |
Tools and views into a Business Service, used during development to interact and view Business Services. These tools run locally and are accessible in your browser. The BAMOE Spring Boot Web Console is built via Spring Boot and existing assets from the BAMOE Quarkus Dev UI extension. |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Data Cleanup Tool |
A tool written in Java to remove out-of-date information from the production database and provided as a container. The Data cleanup tool communicates with all supported databases to remove completed and aborted process instances and related data from a database, ensuring queries continue at acceptable levels of performance. |
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Database mapping libraries for Oracle and MS SQL Server |
Different databases use different reserved words. These mapping libraries adapt the base SQL queries and connections to their respective databases avoiding conflicts with reserved words. |
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
AI Integrations: BAMOE Gen AI task |
A BPMN workflow task which enables easy invocation of an LLM. The Gen AI task provides input for the provider, model, temperature, token limit and prompt. When executed, the task will use the configured information to query the LLM and return the provided response. |
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
AI Integrations: BAMOE MCP Server (Tech Preview) |
A Quarkus-based service that exposes BAMOE decision and rule models to external AI agents via the MCP protocol. Allows DMN, DRL, and BPMN decisions and workflows to be exposed as “Tools” to support an Agentic AI landscape. Builds on the Quarkus MCP server extension, more information available at https://docs.quarkiverse.io/quarkus-mcp-server/dev/ |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
AI Integrations: BAMOE AI Agent task (Tech Preview) |
A BPMN workflow task which enables an integration with Langflow to select flows or agents to be integrated into BAMOE Workflows. |
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Process Instance Migration (PIM) Add-on |
The Process Instance Migration (PIM) integrates with BAMOE Management Console and enables you to plan and manage the migration of Process Instances to new Process Definitions, providing full visualization of process definitions, facilitating tasks such as node mapping and migration scheduling. |
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE on OpenShift running on Linux s390x on IBM z/OS |
Container versions of BAMOE components that run on OpenShift running on IBM z/OS to enable you to build and deploy _Business Services on and IBM z/OS platform running Linux s390x. |
IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Documentation |
The user documentation source prior to release. At GA documentation source is released to the open source repository and to the IBM Docs platform: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ibamoe |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE Examples |
Curated example Business Service projects that showcase the technical and business-oriented capabilities of the product. |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
BAMOE OpenAPI and GraphQL specification files |
Comprehensive specifications for all REST API endpoints and GraphQL schema for Business Services. |
IBM Decision Manager Open Edition, IBM Process Automation Manager Open Edition |
More information on the capabilities and components of IBM Business Automation Manager Open Editions can be found in the Overview.