License Pricing Insanity

chad_small

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PREDATAR Control23

What's up with IBM license pricing being insanely high? I know for us it doesn't help when the Netbackup reps are willing to give their product away (free Crap is still Crap!). I've heard of numerous HUGE accounts looking into Netbackup, and with Symantec basically giving it away, how do you stop management from considering it? With IBM's pricing out of control it doesn't help. I sure hope IBM reconsiders their pricing...it's forcing people off of TSM. :mad:
 
PREDATAR Control23

I thought that one of the main lures was that TSM was affordable. I don't handle the licensing here, but that was one of the reasons for us getting it. That and they weren't happy with the incumbent Legato. Has the pricing recently climbed?
 
PREDATAR Control23

I thought that one of the main lures was that TSM was affordable. I don't handle the licensing here, but that was one of the reasons for us getting it. That and they weren't happy with the incumbent Legato. Has the pricing recently climbed?

We're paying 1,000 to 2,000 per physical server that's backed up at this point. That's a lot of $$$ and getting close to 50% of the cost of the server.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Yeah and when the competition is half that price how do you help your management see that the cost is not the whole picture...you can't so you end up having to move to something that is lightyears behind TSM (My opinion). IBM better rethink their pricing it's really burning a lot of bridges.
 
PREDATAR Control23

With the latest push for TSM 5.4 and upwards, and the new platform requirements to meet the 64bit architecture and API structure, I dont thnk the customer is worried too much about TSM licensing when its peanuts in respect to the platform purchases.

Granted licensing is a pain in the butt - but at the same time - IBM shops are not going to replace TSM reliablity and DR success ratios over a free product that they never used before in any situation.
They'll also find support to be difficult, along with the training curve.

Most are going to take advantage of VMWare partnering - where the VMWare Proxy host will satisy the licensing need for its VMWare machines.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Steven,

Don't be too sure about that, I know of a couple of sites looking into switching because the pricing has become more than they feel they can justify. Remember bean counters make the decisions in fortune 500 companies, and they don't understand the logistical nightmare they cause the IT staff. My sources tell me Kaiser Permanente is one the companies looking at Netbackup because of the cost, and I know our people are considering it too....we'll hold them off as much as possible but IBM is not making it easy when it comes down to the bottom-line.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Steven,

Don't be too sure about that, I know of a couple of sites looking into switching because the pricing has become more than they feel they can justify. Remember bean counters make the decisions in fortune 500 companies, and they don't understand the logistical nightmare they cause the IT staff. My sources tell me Kaiser Permanente is one the companies looking at Netbackup because of the cost, and I know our people are considering it too....we'll hold them off as much as possible but IBM is not making it easy when it comes down to the bottom-line.

It might be that the bean counters makes the decision - I also wish they are the ones in the front line that gets "shot at" when a disaster happens!

One arguement in TSM's favor - TSM is an Enterprise Data Management solution while the others as just that: Backup solutions.

The company that bought my old company found out recently (during implementation) that Co******t does not do hardware encryption as "sold" to them. When I was there, I tried my best to tell them that TSM is "the way to GO", and they won't listen. Go figure!
 
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PREDATAR Control23

It would be nice to have some of the IBM lurkers chime in on this thread. I know they browse these forums...

This is kind of just one more reason for people to look at CommVault Simpana & the like that already purport to be easier & cheaper to manage.
 
PREDATAR Control23

It might be that the bean counters makes the decision - I also wish they are the ones in the front line that gets "shot at" when a disaster happens!

One arguement in TSM's favor - TSM is an Enterprise Data Management solution while the others as just that: Backup solutions.

The company that bought my old company found out recently (during implementation) that Co******t that they bought does not do hardware encryption as "sold" to them. When I was there, I tried my best to tell them that TSM is "the way to GO", and they won't listen. Go figure!

I know TSM is more than just backup, as you say. Thinking about that, can some of you much more knowledgeable than me create a good posting of things that make TSM a data management product as opposed to "just" a backup product?

I think such a list of items would be great to present when the powers that be begin to bring questions, and some of you guys are very savvy with TSM and understand tons more than I do to be able to creat such a list.
 
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PREDATAR Control23

IF you compare TSM EE with all the included at no additional charge items like NDMP, Library Sharing, SAN, DR, vaulting...it is less expensive then Netbackup with their fee based add-ons for the same items.

Where TSM has a problem is in a small environment with servers like blades that have lots of multi-core processors running vmware. All processors must be licensed even if virtualization isn't using all the processors. This is where we see the biggest pricing delta!
 
PREDATAR Control23

Well,
1. Data Tiering. Age, or percent used pools can determine where a file resides and how long it resides there. You can use Disk until its a certain percent full, then move it to tape, then to optical platters or whatever.
2. File based management verses node or file system based. TSM manages files, and not tapes, or nodes, for retention purposes. What this does is keep your offsite footprint as small as possible, and your tapes rotated well, and more efficiently used. It also allows you to have data that needs to be kept a long time and data that isn't very important on the same server without having to keep the not important data any longer than necessary.
3. Data Archiving. Some data sets need to be backed up, others need to be archived (there is a difference). We have SQL nodes that have to have the data stored for 10 years for yearly, 5 years for quarterly, and then regular daily DR type backups. TSM makes this easy.
4. Incrementals forever based on more than an "Archive" bit. Memory of exactly what values are used has left me, but I know that there are several values that TSM uses to determine if a file has actually changed, and the Archive bit is NOT one of them.
5. Licensing NOT based on amount of data. Here's the kicker. If I have a VMWare server with 4 Quad core processors I can put as many Windows, and Linux nodes I want on that thing and back them all up regardless of how many client nodes there are. I have an average running per node cost (if I bought the license outright at street cost) of 20 US dollars. Now, when you factor that maintenance on TSM licenses is much less than original cost, and if your smart you get discounts on that, it gets very cheap to backup VMWare boxes per GB.
6. Recovery that is second to none. The last time I evaluated backup software (and its been some years ago, so forgive me if I'm off now) no one else had an architecture of recovery that even came close to TSM. When you figure that you NEVER (unless restoring a bad local volume) have to call a tape back from offsite to restore a long ago backed up file, you save money. With TSM what you have onsite is what you have offsite, for the most part. with every other system I tried the difference was massive. If data was older than x days you had to call a tape back from offsite. If a massive data Center failure occurs you have all you need offsite to quickly (relatively speaking) rebuild your TSM server and start restoring clients. In every other system I tried, you'd be recovering from weeks old, or many days old, tapes.
7. Last but not least, the widest possible client and configuration support available! If I don't have a TSM client that can back up important data on a Windows NT server I can back it up through a supported Windows 2003 server using a file share or proxy. I can backup everything from Mainframes to Linux (Windows, NetWare (MANY Backup packages don't cover this well), Linux, AIX, HP-UX, etc.). If its a currently supported OS chances are I can back it up with TSM. I can back up straight to tape through my TSM Server, I can backup straight to tape over the SAN, or I can backup to disk through the TSM Server. I can have multiple TSM Servers using the same Library, and I can have TSM Servers backing each other up and route commands to multiple servers at the same time. The possibilities are large and many.

I just don't know of another package that has all this. Some have bits and others have pieces, but none have it all.

Not only that but some of the above things were off the top of my head, :-D. If anyone has more accurate, or current data by all means correct me. And, I hope no one thinks this is too wordy. I've had to assert TSM's value on more than one occasion and this is essentially the list I have used.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Chad,
I have been as frustrated with IBM's licensing practice as you have been. With that being said, make sure you discuss you issues with your IBM software rep., as they can asssit you in clarifing items, or making things right.
An example I have is that we have been licensing both nodes in an active passive MS clusters, and then I heard that for TSM you only have to license the active node. Well, then you read their license document on Hot, Warm and Cold clusters, there is a section on heartbeats, etc, and it looks like you have to license both nodes. Well, I contacted my IBM rep for clarification and during a conference call with some IBM software "important person," it was stated that MS Active Passive clusters do not require TSM licensing for both servers. Now, who knows, this could change tomorrow, but per my request, he is sending me an offical letter stating that this is how MS cluster licensing for TSM works.

Hope this helps.
 
PREDATAR Control23

I hope this works out. We had an audit this year, and the folks doing the audit were VERY inflexible in these kinds of things. Fortunately after I persisted to not allow otherwise and produced such documentation as you mention did they finally relent and allow my company to come out on the better end.

That's why I always get an official note from more than one source stating the same thing along these lines. Get two folks, your sales rep, and an official TSM License rep, to send you such notes.

The reason I'm peaved is that they are going to make us license every processor in our p590s even though one of the three holds nothing but inactive nodes in AIX HACMP clusters. I don't mind for file backups, (because we do backup the base files in the inactive node for cover) but when you throw in Oracle TDP licenses things get very expensive. What we finally were allowed to do is physically hard partition the LPARS running Oracle so that their processor count was fixed. If we had any LPARs that were sharing processors all the physical processors they could "potentially" use had to be licensed! I'd love to get an official statement that would straighten that out.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Trust me we will be discussing it with the rep and hopefully it wont fall on deaf ears. I know TSM has more features but the Symantec rep is litterally giving the core Netbackup away and I'm sure the add-ons will be costly, but not close to the total cost of our TSM licenses.
 
PREDATAR Control23

I think that the licensing folks at IBM need to understand that this product, just as well as any product or person can be replaced easily by the business leaders or owners when cost get out of hand. In my view, not only would IBM lose out on a TSM customer, they would also lose hardware sales as people tend to move away from vendors who get greedy. They need to know that we are looking ot find ways to reduce cost in the ever expanding world of I.T., and that by licensing us to death, they are just driving old customers to complain, and potential new customers to look for other solutions, even if they are not as robust as this product (This is why many people moved from or avoided EMC). I would also like to add that I am extremly frustrated that in the 12 years that I have dealing with licensing and support for IBM, they have changed the way they calculate things about 10 times, and each time, we are the ones who lose (especially with the LPARs). Seriously, why can't they just say that the price is $X per core allocated to an OS? And who is the genius who came up with "Value Units?

OK -- nice thoughts... nice thoughts.....


I hope this works out. We had an audit this year, and the folks doing the audit were VERY inflexible in these kinds of things. Fortunately after I persisted to not allow otherwise and produced such documentation as you mention did they finally relent and allow my company to come out on the better end.

That's why I always get an official note from more than one source stating the same thing along these lines. Get two folks, your sales rep, and an official TSM License rep, to send you such notes.

The reason I'm peaved is that they are going to make us license every processor in our p590s even though one of the three holds nothing but inactive nodes in AIX HACMP clusters. I don't mind for file backups, (because we do backup the base files in the inactive node for cover) but when you throw in Oracle TDP licenses things get very expensive. What we finally were allowed to do is physically hard partition the LPARS running Oracle so that their processor count was fixed. If we had any LPARs that were sharing processors all the physical processors they could "potentially" use had to be licensed! I'd love to get an official statement that would straighten that out.
 
PREDATAR Control23

We got TSM dirt cheap

My company just experienced the opposite of what most of you have reported about pricing. When we started to look at other backup solutions (about 6 months ago) we narrowed it down to CommVault and TSM and were leaning toward CommVault and all of a sudden IBM came in with a price that was so crazy cheap we couldn't even get CommVault to make a competitive offer to what Big Blue was throwing at us!

So from my experience I've gotten the feeling that IBM is very worried about other vendors taking market share. I would venture to guess if you start telling your reps your looking at other solutions the numbers will start to fall.
 
PREDATAR Control23

We also got a very good deal on TSM EE 5.5 just recently.
It came out to be about half the cost of NBU through Dell and a good deal less than BakBone, including installation support. Throw in the fact that we liked the consultant from the local IBM VAR (he had helped us straighten out some legacy RS/6000s last year), and it was a no-brainer for us.

Ironically, we almost didn't look at TSM, since my managers feared that "it's from IBM, it must be expensive!" Luckily, they turned out to be wrong!

We did buy at the end of the quarter, which I'm sure had a little bit to do with the good pricing.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Pricing insanity indeed.

What's up with IBM license pricing being insanely high? I know for us it doesn't help when the Netbackup reps are willing to give their product away (free Crap is still Crap!). I've heard of numerous HUGE accounts looking into Netbackup, and with Symantec basically giving it away, how do you stop management from considering it? With IBM's pricing out of control it doesn't help. I sure hope IBM reconsiders their pricing...it's forcing people off of TSM. :mad:

Chad

I asked an IBM rep to give me some costs on a TSM server license... This is what i recieved back... ( names are removed to protect the guilty :) ) OH MY GOD!!! Do the sales tards at IBM just wake up everymorning and figure out a new way to make our management hate them???? If so they are doing a great job!!!

#1. TSM Extended Edition (D56FELL) -- This product is licensed by 10-packs of "processor value units"
Therefore, the qty you need to order could change if the hardware on which it is licensed changes.
For the sake of this exercise, I am using 200 processor value units (2 single core processors):
Here are some of the details of my calculation. Please feel free to call me if you are confused by these details.
2 cpu server -- 100 pvu's per core = 200 pvus
200/10 = Qty 20 to be ordered (since product is licensed by 10 pvu's.
List price - $50.83/10 pvu's
Qty 20 10pvus x $50.83 = $1,016.60
$1,016.60 -- This is the price for qty 20 10 pvu's, which covers 200 processor value units (2 core processors)

#2. TSM for Databases (D56D9LL) -- This product is also licensed by 10 pvu's
200 pvu's would require 20 10pvu's of the product.
List price 10pvus = $97.60
Qty 2- 10pvus x $97.60 = $1,952
$1,952 -- This is the price for qty 20 10pvu's, which covers 200 processor value units (2 core processors)

#3. TSM for Mail (D56Q3LL) -- This product has the same price as TSM for Databases
200 pvu's requires 20 10packs
$1,952 -- This is the price for qty 20 10pvus which covers 200 processor value units (2 core processors.)


On net backup...

I have to beat into them the fact that if you go with Netbackup you have to buy a hell of a lot more tape, or rely on crappy multiplexing and hope it works well. You'd have to get more staff to handle the administration, you lose the progressive incremental backups from TSM ( which is the father of deduplication), and you lose the built in dedupe functionality that is coming in TSM 6.1.

I then go and get quotes to size for a NetBackup infrastructure, project analyst and tape handler headcount and project software and license maintenance counts, Add in the cost of training all your people, changes to your DR and Operational infrastructure to accommodate, then have the one poor SOB on our team that had to support the crap tell them he will jump off a bridge if they make him go back to taht product, and that usually scares the hell outta management, and they stick with TSM. :)

To them, its all about dollars and cents. If you provide them with TCO comparisons they quickly change their tune and stick with TSM / IBM. I have to admit IBM is making it hard for us to keep the faith.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Yeah and when the competition is half that price how do you help your management see that the cost is not the whole picture...you can't so you end up having to move to something that is lightyears behind TSM (My opinion). IBM better rethink their pricing it's really burning a lot of bridges.

You can't convince management that cost is not the whole picture, because it is. Business is there to make money and the more they spend the less they make. What you can do is convince them they are not looking at the whole picture when they just look at capital cost up front. This is when scare tactics are fun :D

Figure out what the process would be to restore from disaster on both products, particularly pay attention to the time it would take. Ask casually what it costs per day that the business is doing nothing and multiply it by the difference in days from a complete restore from Netbackup versus a well-tuned near-automated TSM recovery from the DR module in extended edition. Then subtract the result from the cost of TSM. Most times I've done this I've been able to illustrate that TSM is cheaper.
 
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