Software Asset Management publisher pack for IBM

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Software Asset Management Publisher Pack for IBM

    The Software Asset Management publisher pack for IBM enables customers to efficiently track and optimize licensing for IBM software products, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server products. To utilize this publisher pack, you must activate the Software Asset Management Professional for IBM plugin.

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    Key Features

    • Supports various license metrics such as Authorized User, Employee User, Per Device, and more.
    • PVU, RVU, and VPC metrics require integration with the IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT), BigFix Inventory, or an authorized Software Asset Management provider.
    • Tracks both full capacity and sub-capacity PVU and RVU licenses without needing the legacy IBM PVU Process Pack.
    • Discovery tools such as ServiceNow Discovery are essential for locating IBM software installations and reconciling software products against entitlements.

    Key Outcomes

    By implementing the IBM publisher pack, customers can streamline the management of their IBM software licenses, ensuring compliance and optimizing costs. The integration with ILMT or BigFix Inventory allows for accurate data importation and easier tracking of licenses across various environments, including VMware and IBM LPAR infrastructures. Additionally, compliance analysis and license usage information can be accessed via specialized dashboards in the Software Asset Management classic application and the Software Asset Workspace.

    Use the Software Asset Management publisher pack for IBM to track and optimize licensing for your IBM software products. You can also use the publisher pack to track and optimize licensing for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Virtual Datacenters products.

    To use the IBM publisher pack, activate the Software Asset Management Professional for IBM (com.sn_samp_ibm) plugin.

    The IBM publisher pack supports the following license metrics:
    • Authorized User
    • Authorized User Value Unit
    • Employee User Value Unit
    • External User Value Unit
    • Per Device
    • Per Named User
    • Per Processor
    • Per User
    • Processor Value Unit (PVU)
    • Resource Value Unit (RVU)
    • Virtual Processor Core (VPC)
    Important:
    The PVU, RVU, and VPC license metrics are supported only if you integrate the IBM publisher pack with the IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT), BigFix Inventory, or a Software Asset Management provider that is authorized to participate in the IBM Client Value Acceleration (CVA) Program. For more information on ILMT and BigFix Inventory integrations, see IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) and BigFix Inventory integrations. For more information on Authorized SAM Provider (ASP) integrations, see Authorized SAM Provider (ASP) integrations for IBM.
    For more information on the supported IBM license metrics, see Software license metrics.
    Important:
    The IBM publisher pack is available as part of the Software Asset Management Professional (com.snc.samp) plugin. The publisher pack includes all capabilities that are required for tracking and managing both full capacity and sub-capacity PVU and RVU licenses for your IBM products. It does not require the legacy IBM PVU Process Pack to track and manage IBM PVU licenses. See iBM PVU Process Pack for more information on the legacy process pack.

    When you run a discovery using a discovery tool such as the ServiceNow Discovery application, the discovery tool locates the IBM software installations in your environment and then imports the associated data into your ServiceNow instance. The Software Asset Management application compares this data against your IBM software entitlements to automatically reconcile your IBM software products, including products in complex server licensing scenarios.

    Important:
    You must use different discovery tools based on the license metric that you are using for reconciliation, and if applicable, the type of IBM integration that you are using with the publisher pack:
    PVU and RVU license metrics
    To reconcile your IBM software products using the PVU or RVU license metrics, you must use one of the following discovery tools:
    • If you are integrating with the ILMT or BigFix Inventory, you must connect to these discovery tools using either version 1 or version 2 of the integration APIs.

    • If you are integrating with a Software Asset Management provider that is authorized to participate in the IBM CVA Program, you must use the ServiceNow Discovery application in conjunction with the IBM License Compliance for Software Asset Management application.

    VPC license metric
    To reconcile your IBM software products using the VPC license metric, you must use one of the following discovery tools:
    • If you are integrating with the ILMT or BigFix Inventory, you must connect to these discovery tools using version 2 of the integration APIs.
    • If you are integrating with a Software Asset Management provider that is authorized to participate in the IBM CVA Program, you must use the ServiceNow Discovery application in conjunction with the IBM License Compliance for Software Asset Management application.
    All other supported license metrics
    To reconcile your IBM software products using any other supported license metric, including user-based license metrics like Authorized User and External User Value Unit, you can use any other discovery tool.