Software Pricing Resources for IBM Z Mainframes

IBM Z software pricing resources

Keep up with recent news and find help in these guides, education modules, and exhibits.

New Container Pricing for IBM Z New Per Payments Pricing on z/OS

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See the latest pricing news

14 November 2017
The Application Development and Test Solution allows clients to increase their entitlement for current z/OS(R)-based development and test environment capacity, up to triple its existing size, with no capacity-based increase in IBM monthly license charge (MLC) software charges for that workload.
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14 November 2017
The New Application Solution provides a more flexible software pricing model for deploying new applications. This allows new applications to be tightly integrated with collocated workloads, with the price predictability of a dedicated environment.
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14 November 2017
Container Pricing for IBM Z allows clients to deploy the IBM Payments Pricing Solution for z/OS, V1.1, recently announced in Software Announcement 217-292, dated September 5, 2017, to use the Container Pricing infrastructure to enhance deployment flexibility and simplify the reporting and billing process.
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10 October 2017
IBM announced that the Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool (SCRT) Version 25 Release 1.0 is available for download.
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5 September 2017
IBM Payments Pricing Solution for z/OS which delivers a new per-payment pricing option for deployments of IBM Financial Transaction Manager for z/OS workloads.
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17 July 2017
IBM announced Container Pricing for IBM Z as part of the IBM z14 announcement. Container Pricing for IBM Z will provide IBM Z clients with simplified pricing for qualified solutions, combining flexible deployment options with competitive economics that are directly relevant to those solutions.
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14 February 2017
Multi-Version Measurement (MVM) replaces Single Version Charging (SVC) for eligible z/OS and z/VSE software programs, providing z Systems clients with more flexibility for new software deployments and software upgrade cycles.
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10 January 2017
The Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool (SCRT) Version 24 Release 10.4 is available for download.
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News from 2002-2016

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Explore pricing references

Reference guide

This reference guide outlines the IBM Z software pricing methodologies, their flexibilities and value.

Read the guide (252 KB)

Sub-capacity planning

Understand your current software inventory, assessing software costs, moving to sub-capacity pricing, and using tools for planning and managing your software costs.

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SCRT users guide

Learn how to get started and how to use the Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool (SCRT), which supports IBM sub-capacity software pricing metrics.

Read the guide (5.7 MB)

LPARS whitepaper

How to understand and control your logical partitions.

Read the paper (246 KB)

How do licensing and charges work?

Licensing Terms & Conditions
What are IBM's software licensing terms and conditions? How do we bill?

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IPLA Software Terms and Conditions
What are the licensing terms for IPLA software? What is Subscription & Support?

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VUE Program Licensing Calculations
What are the Value Unit Edition (VUE) program licensing calculations?

Watch the video (44:05)

z/VM and Distributed Linux Middleware
Is distributed Linux middleware running on z Systems eligible for sub-capacity licensing under Passport Advantage rules?

Watch the video (10:55)

Backup, Disaster Recovery, and Capacity Backup Upgrade
When may a customer make a backup copy of IBM software? When are they allowed to use it?

Watch the video (23:56)

Multi-Version Measurement (MVM)
What is MVM? Why is it better than Single Version Charging (SVC) and the Migration Pricing Option (MPO)?

Watch the video (18:46)

Parallel Sysplex Aggregation
What does Aggregated Sysplex pricing mean, and how can a customer qualify to get it?

Watch the video (45:18)

zNALC and MzNALC
How does z Systems New Application License Charges (zNALC) drive new workloads to the platform with attractive pricing?

Watch the video (26:36)

Mobile Workload Pricing
How do you mitigate the impact of mobile and cloud workloads on sub-capacity license charges when transaction volumes may cause a spike?

Watch the video (20:14)

Country Multiplex Pricing
How do you create a country-wide z Systems platform where clients can configure and balance workloads more easily with fewer constraints?

Watch the video (47:26)

How do I use the tools?

Sub-Capacity & R4HA
What is the rolling 4-hour average? How does the Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool calculate the MSU values charged for Sub-Capacity products?

Watch the video (20:14)

Defined Capacity & Group Capacity Limits
How do Sub-Capacity customers use the Defined Capacity and Group Capacity Limits tool to control the maximum MSUs charges for the products in an LPAR or set of LPARs?

Watch the video (10:40)

Reading the SCRT Report
How do I read the sections of the report? What are the different comment fields used? Which MSU report numbers are used for software billing?

Watch the video (29:01)

Workload Pricer Support for S&S Anniversary Dates
How do you use Workload Pricer to correctly calculate incremental S&S charges aligned to S&S Anniversary Dates?

Watch the video (19:37)

What if I have unique pricing needs?

On/Off Capacity On Demand (OOCoD)
How do I know if software charges will result from the use of On/Off Capacity On Demand (OOCoD)?

Watch the video (18:43)

Cross Systems Waivers
How can I use Cross Systems Waivers to avoid paying for licenses on both machines when migrating workloads to a new machine?

Watch the video (22:10)

Collocated Application Pricing
How do sub-capacity customers who add new applications pay for new workloads as if in a dedicated environment?

Listen to the recording (55:24)

Find pricing and licensing exhibits

The IBM Z Software Contracts Exhibit website contains information extracted from and referenced by IBM customer agreements and contracts. You may notice that your contracts from IBM refer to information found on this website. In the past this website was also referred to as the “System z9 and zSeries Software Contracts website” as well as the “System z9 and zSeries Software Pricing Website” and the "z Systems Software Contracts website".

Hardware exhibits by vendor

IBM
Amdahl
Comparex
Fujitsu

HDS
Hitachi
Olivetti
Yadro

Other vendors
Stand-alone Coupling Facility