IBM FlexPoints
Available from 9.2.13. FlexPoint is a license metric unit that can be used to determine the cost of IBM products that are purchased as part of FlexPoint bundles. Each product from a bundle is licensed based on a different license metric but all metrics are converted into IBM FlexPoints. The conversion is based on the specific calculations. PVU and RVU software that is assigned to a FlexPoint bundle, must be licensed based on subcapacity rules. Products that are currently available as part of FlexPoint bundles are products from the IBM Cloud and IBM Analytics.
Predicting the number of required IBM FlexPoints
To predict the number of IBM FlexPoints that are required to license products in your environment, you can use the FlexPoint Calculator. For each product that you are planning to deploy as part of a FlexPoint bundle, specify the number of license metric units. The numbers are then converted into IBM FlexPoints and summed up.
Example
The following example describes how the number of IBM FlexPoints that are used in your environment is counted by BigFix Inventory. The calculations are based on sample values and should be treated only as an example.
Product | Used license metrics | IBM FlexPoints per license metric unit | Calculations |
---|---|---|---|
UrbanCode Deploy Server Agent | 2 Virtual Servers | 129,800 | 2 x 129,800 = 259,600 |
Rational Test Workbench | 50 Authorized Users | 15,950 | 50 x 15,950 = 797,500 |
Rational Test Virtualization Server | 210 PVUs | 2,893 | 210 x 2,893 = 607,530 |
Total FlexPoints Used | 1,664,630 |
Reading metric utilization
Information about FlexPoint bundles
You can view information about FlexPoint bundles on the IBM FlexPoints report. The report lists the FlexPoint bundles based on the decisions that you make during software classification. The metric quantity represents the license metric utilization for an entire bundle over the specified period of time expressed in FlexPoints.
Information about the products that contribute to FlexPoint bundles
To view the detailed report with license metric utilization for individual products that are parts of a bundle, go to the IBM FlexPoints report, and click the FlexPoint bundle name in the Product Name column. The detailed information include the peak date of the entire FlexPoint bundle and the number of FlexPoints used by each individual product. Additionally, you can check the number of original metric units by which the products are licensed that are used over the reporting period.
Information about FlexPoints in audit snapshot
When you generate the audit snapshot, information about FlexPoint bundles and the number of FlexPoints that they use is contained in the flexpoints.csv file. The file additionally contains information about the software products within the bundle and the number of FlexPoints used by them.
Row No. | Publisher | Product Name | FlexPoint Bundle | Metric | Metric Quantity | Peak Date | FlexPoint Quantity | Recalculation Needed |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | IBM | Cloud DevOps - Perpetual | FlexPoint | None | 139,073 | 06/14/2019 | No | |
2 | IBM | BigFix Rational ClearCase | Floating User | Cloud DevOps - Perpetual | 20 | 06/14/2019 | 136,400 | No |
3 | IBM | BigFix Rational ClearQuest | Authorized User | Cloud DevOps - Perpetual | 1 | 06/14/2019 | 2,673 | No |