And I'll weigh in here just because and you all should be aware that I have
not read all the replies to this thread.

This is particularly deplorable since the licensing tools within TSM don't
offer the ability to track the licenses the way they are sold.  Nor do the
clients have the ability to determine how many CPUs the server they are
running on have (whew, was that a stupid sentence).  So the whole thing is
whacked and invites corruption: reg lic until the stupid thing stops telling
you "not in compliance with license".

The fact that so many of us are railing at this suggests that something
should be done.  I was in a meeting with some IBM guys and someone said that
90% of the deals they were working on required special pricing.  Clearly if
90% require an exception, the rule is just flat wrong.

Come on guys.  I understand that the rest of IBM software is based on a per
CPU model, but this product is different or should be.

Kelly J. Lipp
CFO/VP Engineering
STORServer, Inc.
485-B Elkton Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
www.storserver.com
719-266-8777
Fax: 719-266-5576


-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU]On Behalf Of
Gretchen L. Thiele
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 7:22 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: new TSM Client Pricing


I've repeatedly told my sales rep and anyone at Tivoli who would listen
that this licensing scheme really poses a hardship. We support a
semi-open registration process, not only for on campus machines, but for
  those that work at home, are on sabbatical, etc. There is no way that
I can keep track of what type of machine it is, let alone the number of
processors or whether it is a client or server.

I also haven't seen addressed the licensing for 'virtual machines.'
These are the machines that run Virtual PC or VM Ware and now, thanks to
the unicode filespaces imposed by Win2K/XP, need to have separate client
nodes. The number of these machines, as well as other dual boot systems,
is growing. It used to be that I could set up an account for a student
and they could back up their Mac, Windows and Linux computers (whether
separate or all on one physical machine) on one account. Granted, they
couldn't cross restore, but at least they had the backup 'stuff' all in
one place and only one password to remember. Also, less admin for me at
graduation for account cleanup.

What about virtual nodes? We run several Oracle instances on one
physical box. Does each virtual node pay the price of its host? We also
have backups of larger UNIX boxes, but allow individual users to run
their own TSM client on it for special cases. Aren't I going to be
paying for the same physical machine twice?

Gretchen Thiele
Princeton University