Verify subcapacity values and generate the snapshot

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After you classify the software, verify how utilization of license metrics that you would like to maintain relates to the actual consumption. For products for which utilization is above or far below your expectation, ensure that the values were not distorted, for example by failing scans or false-positive software discovery. Finally, generate the audit snapshot and store it for two years in case of an audit.

  1. Open the All Metrics report and from the list of predefined reports, choose Metric Thresholds.
  2. For every product, specify the threshold to indicate the consumption that you would like to maintain. It will help you easily spot products for which the subcapacity value is above or far below the expectation. To specify the threshold, perform the following steps.
    1. Click the pencil sign (Pencil icon) in the Threshold column, and click Set Threshold.
    2. Provide the value and click Set.

      After setting the threshold, you can see your current consumption (Metric Quantity), the desired one (Threshold), and the difference between them (Threshold Delta).

  3. If subcapacity values for any product are above or far below the threshold, check whether they are not distorted, for example by failing scans or false-positive software discovery.
    • If the subcapacity value for a product is above the threshold, it might mean that you exceeded your entitlement. For every such product, ensure that:
      • The specified threshold is correct.
      • VM managers that control resources available to virtual machines where the software was detected are defined and their status is OK. If License Metric Tool does not have access to data from all relevant VM managers, metric consumption on some of the virtual machines might be counted as full capacity instead of subcapacity.
      • Software is correctly classified. For example, check whether components are assigned to proper products, or instances such as trial versions or backups are excluded from pricing calculations.
      • Installation files are not discovered as installed software.
      • Software and capacity scans are running and their results are uploaded to the BigFix® server regularly.
      • Imports of data are not failing.
      • The License Metric Tool server is up-to-date and processors are matched properly. Otherwise, an incorrect or default number of PVUs might be assigned to a processor.

      If you verify all of these points and the consumption is still above the threshold, contact your Sales Representative or the IBM Compliance Team to discuss further steps.

    • If the subcapacity value for a product is far below the threshold, ensure that:
      • The specified threshold is correct.
      • The BigFix client is deployed on every computer where the product is installed.
      • None of the directories where the product is installed is excluded from software scans.
      • Software and capacity scans are running and their results are uploaded to the BigFix server regularly.
      • Imports of data are not failing.

      If you verify all of these points and the consumption is still far below the threshold, you probably deployed fewer software instances than you own. Contact your Sales Representative or the IBM Compliance Team to discuss further steps.

  4. Generate the audit snapshot and store it as a record of subcapacity values for the products that were discovered in your environment. It is a good practice to generate the snapshot once per quarter. To generate the snapshot, open the All Metrics report, and click Audit Snapshot.

Results

Congratulations, you ordered the products in your environment and generated your first audit report. If you want, you can further customize License Metric Tool and explore its capabilities. You can also stop at this point and store the report for audit purposes. It is a good practice to generate the report once per quarter to keep track of your subcapacity consumption and to ensure that your environment is properly maintained and up-to-date. Store the snapshot for at least two years in case of an audit.