Licensing Update: Reporting PVU Compliance for HCL Domino

Since July 2019, HCL Digital Solutions has been committed to introducing modern licensing, license management, and support lifecycle practices for all our products. We know this is a journey over multiple years and we know that managing license compliance is complex. Specifically, dealing with virtualized servers and sub-capacity licensing for products on a Processor Value Unit (PVU) metric. 

While we intend to replace Domino PVU-based licenses with a simpler approach in the foreseeable future, we know that our customers want to know how to document their compliance with the IBM or HCL capacity-based licensing terms. Today, we are announcing that we will be consolidating our PVU compliance rules across all our products, starting with the Domino family – see “Reporting” section below for reporting methods accepted. Importantly, this announcement has no impact on any customer’s entitlements or license payments. 

DEFINITIONS 

What is Processor Value Unit licensing?
A Processor Value Unit (PVU) is a unit of measure used to quantify licensing of software on different processor technologies and configurations. HCL defines a processor, for purposes of PVU-based licensing, to be each processor core on a chip (socket). Each processor core has a specific PVU capacity dependent on physical implementation as can be seen in IBM’s PVU Table by Processor Vendor, Brand, Type and Model Number here.  

What is Sub-Capacity licensing?
A program can be deployed using either Full Capacity or Virtualization Capacity (Sub-Capacity) licensing. 

• For Full Capacity licensing, (“bare metal”) customers need PVU entitlements to cover the entire physical server hardware where the program is running. 
• Where Sub-Capacity (Virtual Servers) licensing is permitted, customers need PVU entitlements to cover all activated processor cores made available to the Virtual Servers used by the Program. This is normally a lower PVU count than bare-metal licensing. Likewise, Sub-Capacity licensing applies to BYOSL deployment on Public Cloud environments. 

REPORTING 

All Domino customers are required to maintain a record of their total PVUs allocated to the product. The report must be presented to HCL on request (per HCL Master License Agreement, §12, available here.) 

HCL now accepts the following reports for Full Capacity and Sub-Capacity licensing: 

1. The new HCL PVU Calculator is now available to HCL registered customers. View Calculator here.  
2. HCL BigFix Inventory that includes PVU reporting for Virtual Deployments. 
3. IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) which is a tool available to IBM Passport Advantage customers. 
4. A manual spreadsheet published and maintained by IBM.  Download Spreadsheet here. (Note: HCL assumes no responsibility for maintenance of this spreadsheet or associated documentation. However, HCL will accept this documentation solely for former IBM Domino customers to help with continuity.) 

IMPLEMENTATION 

The use of the various reporting methods is effective immediately, and all relevant product-based License Information (LI) documents will be updated at their next revision to simply point to HCL’s standard PVU compliance guidelines as provided above. 

If you have any questions about this announcement, please contact your HCL product specialist or Business Partner. 

Domino/Digital Solutions Product Team

Disclaimer – HCL’s statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at HCL’s sole discretion. Information regarding potential future products is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information mentioned regarding potential future products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality. Information about potential future products may not be incorporated into any contract. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion. Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard HCL benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending upon many factors, including considerations such as the amount of multi programming in the user’s job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve results similar to those stated here.