FAQ: Container Pricing for IBM Z

Q: What’s the official IBM description?

A: Container Pricing for IBM Z provides simplified software pricing for qualified solutions, combining flexible deployment options with competitive economics that are directly relevant to those solutions. This new approach allows IBM-approved solution workloads running on z13 and z14 to scale from collocated solutions within existing LPARs, through to separate LPARs, up to multiple LPAR solutions, without directly impacting the cost of unrelated workloads!

https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/software/pricing

Q: What are the current qualified solutions?

Application Development and Test Solution. The workloads may consist of one or more stand-alone LPARs, or collocated with existing workloads.
New Application Solution – allows clients to add new approved z/OS workloads, such as CICS TS or WebSphere applications, that are not currently running on any Z platform server. Solutions may be collocated with existing workloads, without directly impacting the R4HA, or may maintain an LPAR scope.
Payments Pricing Solution – a new “per payment” price metric that is tied directly to payment volumes, with collocated software and separate LPAR software-hardware versions, based on IBM Financial Transaction Manager (FTM) software.

Q: What PKWARE products are "qualified" solutions for use by customers looking for IBM container pricing?

A: None at this time. Customers looking to run PKWARE products would need to first contact their IBM representative and have them determine whether their PKWARE product is eligible for IBM Container Pricing.

Q: How do PKWARE products fit into IBM container pricing?

A: PKWARE products, such as Smartcrypt, are viable for use in the Development and Test Solution and New Application Solution as defined by IBM. This is the same as current usage on an IBM processor. There would not be any changes relating to licensing or operational use of PKWARE products for any workloads being designated as using container pricing.

Q: What are PKWARE pricing options for zSeries processors?

Model Pricing: PKWARE products on a zSeries processor are based on the stated MSU capacity of the model of the machine being licensed.

IBM publishes LSPR charts for each zSeries processor model.
LPAR Pricing: PKWARE products licensed to a specific LPAR are priced to a customer specified defined capacity for the licensed LPAR. This model automatically incorporates container pricing impact (see below).

Q: How do we verify the customers LPAR stated capacity for PKWARE LPAR pricing?

A: LPAR pricing is based on the customers defined capacity for a given LPAR. This value is verified by using the customers SCRT reports, which are required by IBM for a customer to get reduced pricing on IBM software used, also sent to PKWARE. By using the R4HA (rolling four-hour average) in the report customer service validates that customer did not exceed the defined capacity.

Q: What impact does container pricing have on PKWARE LPAR pricing?

A: Utilizing the SCRT reports, PKWARE will continue to use the z/OS MSU value for a licensed LPAR to validate that the customer has not exceeded the stated defined capacity. The MSU value for non-container workloads will be reduced by the value reported by the container solutions because of this customer service will add the container z/OS MSUs to the non-container z/OS MSUs to determine if the defined capacity was exceeded.

Q: In what way do you provide support for IBM’s Tailored Fit (aka “Container”) Pricing with the new SCRT 27.1 ISV Reporting Package?

A: PKWARE provides updates for SCRT reporting jobs, included with the latest builds of our version 15.0, 16.0 and 16.1 software, for z/OS for its LPAR pricing model. This will enable the jobs to report on PKWARE product usage in this new environment configuration, when ran in conjunction with the new SCRT 27.1 ISV reporting package. For customers with existing SCRT pricing models, reporting updates are available / compatible with the following PKWARE software versions / levels: v15.0 LVL10 (or higher); v16.0 LVL4 (or higher); v16.1 LVL0 (or higher). For more information, click HERE to contact PKWARE Technical Support.