AamerSharif
IBM Cloud Pak’s and Non-Cloud Pak Products Sub-capacity Reporting in the Kubernetes Environment
IBM now sells software licenses through ‘IBM Cloud Paks’, a new form of multiproduct bundle license offering which is primarily licensed on a sub-capacity virtual processor core (VPC) metric. IBM Cloud Pak software licenses can be deployed/licensed in traditional Server / VM / Cloud instances as well as via the Kubernetes container environment.
Flexera ITAM/FNMS already supports IBM Cloud Pak’s sub-capacity licensing available in FNMS 2020 R2 and later releases.
ITAM/FNMS June 2021 cloud update now provides IBM Cloud Paks including non-cloud Pak products sub-capacity reporting running in Kubernetes container environment by integrating with IBM License service (IBM License Service MUST (IBM sub-capacity licensing requirement for Kubernetes) be enabled in Kubernetes cluster to be eligible for sub-capacity licensing). IBM License Service supports sub-capacity reporting for products license using PVU/VPC metic in the Kubernetes cluster environment.
Tip: In Cloud Pak bundles, the licensing of primary products also covers any bundled supplementary products, so these supplementary cannot be separately licensed.
IBM Cloud Paks & Non-Cloud Pak products sub-capacity reporting licensed using VPC/PVU metric in Kubernetes environment
A VPC license doesn't have a points table as such (the way that a PVU license does), but each licensed product in an IBM Cloud Pak bundle has an individual ratio of the number of VPCs permitted for each license entitlement. For example, if a particular product in the bundle has a 2:1 ratio, two VPCs can be used to run that product for every individual license entitlement. If another product in the same bundle has a 1:1 ratio, then that same single license entitlement also authorizes one core (VPC) to be assigned to run the second product.
IBM products licensed using PVU metric, use 70 points factor to calculate sub-capacity peak in Kubernetes environment.
In general, the IBM VPC license is for managing sub-capacity consumption in a way very similar to the IBM PVU license, and all the same PVU sub-capacity rules apply to licensing IBM Cloud Paks. For example, the VPC license tracks peak consumption within the same three mandatory IBM regions, and for the same reporting period, as do PVU licenses.
Another familiar requirement, if you have been granted a license variation to use FlexNet Manager Suite to track sub-capacity consumption of PVU license, is that you must archive
What do I need to do for IBM Cloud Pak’s sub-capacity reporting in the Kubernetes environment?
Flexera has introduced a new Flexera Kubernetes inventory agent in June ITAM/FNMS cloud update that integrates with IBM License Service running in Kubernetes cluster to collect the sub-capacity data for each product running in a Kubernetes cluster.
You need to deploy Flexera Kubernetes inventory agent in each Kubernetes cluster to integrate with the IBM License service. Once IBM License Service integration feature is enabled within the Flexera Kubernetes inventory agent, the agent will automatically start collecting sub-capacity data and upload it to ITAM/FNMS instance in the cloud part of the collected inventory data collected from the Kubernetes cluster. FNMS persist collected sub-capacity data for each day and provides a sub-capacity report for IBM software running in the Kubernetes environment.
IBM Cloud Pak’s and Non-Cloud Pak products running in Kubernetes environment sub-capacity report
ITAM/FNMS June cloud update aggregate the sub-capacity data from each cluster and provide a sub-capacity report of IBM License Service Consumption by the current reporting period. You can choose to date range to view the current sub-capacity peak or for the specific time period based on the need. By default, the report shows a license peak for the current reporting period (180 days).
Note: IBM Cloud Pak License and product ratios (VPC to License) are shown above are for illustration purposes only.
