Licensing guidance for watsonx.data

This topic provides information about licensing and entitlements for watsonx.data.

watsonx.data on IBM Software Hub

Note: This Licensing guidance is intended to provide only supplementary information to assist you in deploying one or more programs you have licensed from IBM within 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 watsonx.data is the sole and complete agreement between you and IBM regarding use of the program.

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 topic covers the following information:

Listing of licenses by type

The following licenses are used when creating instances of watsonx.data in the spec.license.license field of each custom resource:

For license versions, see the table of license versions.

Full licenses
Full licenses include 1 virtual processor core (VPC) of watsonx.data. To review the license agreements for any of the following full watsonx.data licenses, click the link for that license:
  • IBM® watsonx.data 2.0.2 (5900-AXD)
  • IBM watsonx.data Non-Production 2.0.2 (5900-AXD)
  • IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 2.0.2 (5900-AYS)
  • IBM watsonx.data Perpetual Non-Production 2.0.2 (5900-AYS)
  • IBM watsonx.data 2.0.1 (5900-AXD)
  • IBM watsonx.data Non-Production 2.0.1 (5900-AXD)
  • IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 2.0.1 (5900-AYS)
  • IBM watsonx.data Perpetual Non-Production 2.0.1 (5900-AYS)
For more information, see IBM Terms.
Reserved licenses

Reserved licenses does not include Red Hat OpenShift entitlement. They are intended for organizations that either have an existing Red Hat OpenShift entitlement or commit to using watsonx.data on public cloud environments with managed Red Hat OpenShift. Prior IBM approval is required.

The reserved watsonx.data licenses can be found here:

  • IBM watsonx.data Reserved 2.0.2 (5900-AXD)
  • IBM watsonx.data Non-Production Reserved 2.0.2 (5900-AXD)
  • IBM watsonx.data Perpetual Reserved 2.0.2 (5900-AYS)
  • IBM watsonx.data Perpetual Non-Production Reserved 2.0.2 (5900-AYS)
  • IBM watsonx.data Reserved 2.0.1 (5900-AXD)
  • IBM watsonx.data Non-Production Reserved 2.0.1 (5900-AXD)
  • IBM watsonx.data Perpetual Reserved 2.0.1 (5900-AYS)
  • IBM watsonx.data Perpetual Non-Production Reserved 2.0.1 (5900-AYS)
For more information, see IBM Terms.
Table of license versions
Table 1. Table of license versions
License Use Description
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 2.0.2
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 2.0.2
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 2.0.1
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 2.0.1
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 2.0
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 2.0
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.1.4
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.1.4
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.1.3
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.1.3
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.1.2
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.1.2
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.1.1
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.1.1
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.1.0
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.1.0
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.0.3
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.0.3
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.0.2
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.0.2
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.0.1
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.0.1
5900-AXD Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data 1.0.0
5900-AYS Production or non-production IBM watsonx.data Perpetual 1.0.0

What do you get with your purchase of watsonx.data, and what is your entitlement?

IBM watsonx.data offers collect, store, query, and analyze all your enterprise data with a single unified data platform. You can purchase entitlement to watsonx.data 2.0 for different term lengths:
  • Perpetual license
  • Monthly license
  • Subscription license
Your purchase of watsonx.data includes entitlement to:
  • watsonx.data 2.0
  • Supporting offerings
  • Non-charged entitlements for watsonx.data
Supporting offerings
Supporting offerings can be used only to support functionality that is included in watsonx.data. If there is a conflict of license terms, the license terms for watsonx.data supersede the license terms of the supporting offerings.
watsonx.data includes the following supported offerings:
Table 2. Supported offerings
Supporting program Permitted component
IBM Cloud Pak for Data Enterprise Edition IBM Cloud Pak for Data Control Plane
Analytics Engine Powered by Apache Spark

IBM Storage Fusion Advanced

- Foundation
  • Internal deployment mode only.
  • Excludes disaster recovery, backup components, data cataloging, and advanced encryption with KMS.
IBM Storage Ceph Pro Edition
IBM Data Virtualization Manager for z/OS Data Virtualization JDBC Driver
IBM Cloud Pak Foundational Services
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM)
  • Certificate Management
  • License Service
  • Platform UI
  • Install
Note: Supporting components except Analytics Engine Powered by Apache Spark are non-chargeable components. That is, they are not used to determine the number of entitlements required for the program.
Following are the supporting programs with deployment in containers:
  • IBM Cloud Pak for Data Control Plane
  • Analytics Engine Powered by Apache Spark
  • IBM Cloud Pak Foundational Services
  • IBM Data Virtualization Manager for z/OS - Data Virtualization JDBC Driver
  • Fusion Data Foundation - internal deployment mode only

The licensing for watsonx.data is by the VPC metric; either perpetual, monthly, or a subscription license.

For more information about IBM perpetual, monthly, and subscription licenses, see Passport Advantage Licensing Overview.

For more information about different chargeable metrics such as VPCs and PIUs, see Reported License Metrics.

The parts associated with the perpetual, monthly, and subscription licenses are published in the announcement letter for each release. See the most recent announcement letter for watsonx.data 2.0.

Monthly and subscription licenses for watsonx.data include both the entitlement to use the program and the associated subscription and the support entitlement. The perpetual license entitlement allows use of the program in perpetuity, but for subscription and support after the first 12 months, you must purchase yearly subscription and support renewals.

If customers with perpetual license entitlement do not renew their subscription and support, the support access key expires, and they will no longer be able to download product images from the IBM entitled registry (cp.icr.io). Therefore, they lose access to the product images unless they mirror the product images from the IBM entitled registry to a customer-owned registry (before subscription and support lapses) and configure their system to pull from this registry.

Support availability for each watsonx.data release follows the published support model as described in the announcement letter. For an updated view of which releases are supported and whether fixes are available for each release, see the Support Lifecycle page.

Options for purchasing watsonx.data

Currently, there is only net new licenses option to purchase watsonx.data. Customers can buy their chosen quantity of watsonx.data licenses as either perpetual, monthly, or subscription.

License ratios

Licensing for watsonx.data is measured by using virtual processor core (VPC). A single watsonx.data license is equal to 1 VPC. All watsonx.data components require watsonx.data - Core.
Table 3. Core details
Component Entitlement Compute Memory Description
Core 20 VPCs 20 CPUs 17 GB Core services needed by all watsonx.data engines.
Note: 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.
Converting licensing metrics
The following table covers the conversion ratio for VPC to VPC. The entitlements can be used multiple times with different combinations.
watsonx.data includes both chargeable and non-chargeable components. Only chargeable components consume watsonx.data entitlements when deployed. Other components will not consume watsonx.data entitlements but will use OpenShift entitlement if deployed. Examples of the components that are chargeable and non-chargeable are listed in the following table.
Table 4. Production and non- production license ratios
Engine VPC ratio (capability: watsonx.data)
Presto (Java) 1 : 1
Presto (C++) 1 : 2
Spark 1 : 1
Milvus 3 : 1
What qualifies as non-production workload?
If a program is designated as non-production, it can only be used as part of internal development and test environment for internal non-production activities.
What consumes watsonx.data license entitlements according to the ratio?
  • watsonx.data Core
  • watsonx.data Presto
  • watsonx.data Spark
  • watsonx.data Milvus
Additional non-charged entitlements for watsonx.data

Additional flat entitlement means that regardless of the number of entitlements that are obtained for the program, use of the program is limited to the number of entitlements listed.

  • IBM Storage Fusion Advanced (check the permitted components section) - 100 usable terabytes.
  • IBM Storage Ceph Pro Edition (excluding Red Hat Enterprise Linux) - 768 terabytes raw storage.

Differences in license terms

The license terms for watsonx.data supersede the license terms of the bundled offerings. However, this policy applies only when there is a conflict of terms. Terms that apply to the bundled programs still apply if not superseded.
Note: All deployments of watsonx.data that are deployed on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform must have sufficient entitlement for the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cores that are used.

Offering-specific licenses

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform entitlements (software subscription and support for the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform)

The entitlements for Red Hat OpenShift that are included in the watsonx.data entitlement are restricted license entitlements. Restricted license entitlement means that software subscription and support for the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform that is acquired under your watsonx.data license is only provided for use of the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (specifically for watsonx.data and not non-watsonx.data workloads).

The entitlements can be used only for deployments of watsonx.data instances. You cannot use them for third-party deployments or custom code. If you deploy other code or components (such as agents used for monitoring watsonx.data capabilities), you must purchase separate Red Hat OpenShift entitlements to make them available to the cluster. Without that, the deployment of the non-watsonx.data workload on the Red Hat OpenShift licenses result in the OpenShift cores and workload to be unsupported. These additional OpenShift entitlements for running non-watsonx.data workload must be procured separately from the OpenShift entitlements that are granted through IBM watsonx.data.
Note: Organizations deploying watsonx.data on managed OpenShift environments in public clouds such as AWS ROSA, IBM ROKS, or Azure ARO might get discounts on the cost of OpenShift on worker nodes where watsonx.data is deployed. This is based on the OpenShift entitlements that are included in the watsonx.data entitlements. Customers must verify with their public cloud service provider to establish if a discount is available. If no discount is available, check with your IBM representative whether they should buy watsonx.data reserved, which does not include OpenShift entitlement and is sold if deployment will only be in environments with separately entitled OpenShift.