Licensing Virtual servers

[narab]

Hi everyone,

I need a little bit of help. We have 3 physical servers and 5 virtual servers. Do I need to license TSM only for the 3 physical servers or also for the 5 virtual ones?

 

[Harry_Redl]

Hi,

just the physical CPUs (cores) - no virtuals. Do not forget to count CPUs (cores) of the TSM server itself.

Harry

 

[dangel42]

If only it were that easy...check out this link regarding IBM's PVU licensing. Make sure to read the box labeled "PVU full-capacity and sub-capacity licensing" closer to the bottom.

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/passportadvantage/pvu_licensing_for_customers.html

 

[Raakin]

Actually it is as simple as Harry mentioned.
If, however, you do not use every CPU on the box for VMs TSM is backing up, then you can opt to use the sub-capacity nightmare to license you VMs.

 

[gimlet]

So...in an ESX environment, with sub-capacity, would I need to license per vCPU or for all cores the VM could run on?

 

[Raakin]

In any environment you need to license per PHYSICAL CPU cores. With the ESX environment you have an additional option, making use of the sub-capacity, if you choose. It simply allows one to license a sub-portion of the over all physical ESX CPU cores if the VMs you back up are not using all the ESX CPU cores.

Due to the nightmare of how it worked when I last looked into it, I do not muck with the sub-capacity. (When I first looked into it a report would have to be submitted quarterly stating the number of physical cores your VMs are using. We have way too many VMs for me to waste time on that!)