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IBM Licensing Mastery.

The complete IBM commercial position, taught from the buyer's side of the table: the metric catalog, processor value units and the sub capacity bargain, ILMT and the reporting obligations that keep the affordable count available, Cloud Paks and the container estate, Red Hat, IBM software on public cloud, the mainframe and Tailored Fit Pricing, audit defence, and the negotiation itself. Twenty sessions, each with analyst grade slides, on screen knowledge checks with worked answers, clips from a senior licensing analyst, homework, and further reading.

3 sessions live20 sessions × ~20 minutes4 modules3 knowledge checks per sessionFree, no form
Start here. Session 1 is the map: the two obligations that come with an IBM licence, the documents that decide your metric, and the four questions that tell you which kind of estate you have.
Watch session 1

The curriculum

Module 1 is the prerequisite; modules 2 and 3 can be taken in either order; module 4 assumes all of it. Sessions publish in order.

Module 1 · Foundations of IBM licensing
01
The IBM licensing landscape
The two obligations, the four documents, the metric families, and where IBM risk actually lives.
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02
The IBM contract stack
IPLA, Passport Advantage, the License Information document, restricted use, and the four sub capacity obligations.
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03
The metric catalog
PVU, VPC, RVU, UVU, the user metrics, Install and MAPC, and the variable each one follows.
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04
Subscription and Support
the annuity, the annual uplift, lapse, reinstatement, and what dropping S&S really costs.
In production
05
Building the IBM entitlement baseline
Passport Advantage reports, bundled and restricted use entitlements, and what the portal does not tell you.
In production
Module 2 · PVU, sub-capacity and ILMT (the signature IBM topic)
06
PVU licensing
the processor value unit table, core factors, and what full capacity means in money.
In production
07
Sub-capacity licensing
the eligibility rules and the four obligations you take on to use it.
In production
08
ILMT
deployment, the 90 day rule, quarterly reports, the two year retention, and the exemptions.
In production
09
Virtualization and capping
eligible technologies, LPAR and WPAR, VMware clusters, and how one host becomes the whole estate.
In production
10
The ILMT operating model
the five failures that create findings, and keeping the position clean between audits.
In production
Module 3 · Containers, Cloud Paks and the modern estate
11
IBM Cloud Paks
the bundles, the VPC metric, and the entitlement conversion ratios.
In production
12
Licensing in OpenShift and Kubernetes
the IBM License Service, and what changes when ILMT stops being the tool.
In production
13
Red Hat inside IBM
RHEL subscriptions, OpenShift core pairs, and where the two paper trails meet.
In production
14
IBM software on public cloud
BYOSL, the cloud policy, and licensing on AWS and Azure without losing sub-capacity.
In production
15
Maximo, Watson and the newer portfolio
AppPoints, consumption models, and the AI additions.
In production
Module 4 · Mainframe, audit and the negotiation
16
Mainframe licensing
MSU, monthly license charges, the rolling four hour average, SCRT and specialty engines.
In production
17
Tailored Fit Pricing
the consumption models, when they beat MLC, and how to run the comparison honestly.
In production
18
The IBM audit
the triggers, the third party auditors, the scope letter, and how the process actually runs.
In production
19
Defending and settling a finding
the ILMT gap, back maintenance, and turning a settlement into a forward deal.
In production
20
Negotiating with IBM and the capstone
one estate end to end, the fiscal calendar, the ELA decision, and the terms that pay every year.
In production
Learning the playbook and want it applied to your numbers? We work on contingency: 25% of what we save you. Nothing saved, nothing paid.
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