IBM license and contract expertise

• One-off IBM compliance and optimization plan

We help you to develop an end-to-end compliance position for your IBM products. This includes data collection, inventory (purchases and deployments), compliance calculation, assessment of financial risk, and an optimization plan to reduce risk and cost.

• IBM audit management 

We support our clients in managing IBM audits, from the receipt of the letter from IBM to the conclusion of the audit. Our work includes scoping and audit protocol, collecting and analysing data before sending it to IBM or the auditor, estimating potential financial risk, anticipating IBM’s actions and reactions, audit strategy (during and after audit), and managing the relationship with the auditor in order to minimize the financial impact of the audit.

See page: I am facing an audit

• IBM contract negotiation

The preparation phase is a key step in the success of a negotiation with a publisher, including with IBM. We support clients by providing benchmarks of prices and clauses, identifying negotiation levers, and helping you to understand contractual metrics, in order to approach an IBM negotiation with a clear strategy as well as a precise financial and technical target.

See page: I need help with contract management and renewal

• Sub-capacity eligibility management

The more your IBM infrastructure is virtualized, the more benefit you will obtain from sub-capacity pricing. It is therefore essential to carefully manage your eligibility for sub-capacity pricing. Most organizations believe that it is enough to have acquired ILMT to be eligible for sub-capacity. 

In reality, it is necessary to fulfil many conditions, such as the following:
 

ILMT was installed within 90 days of installation of the relevant products

ILMT is correctly deployed (all servers supporting IBM products are covered)

Upgrades of versions and catalogs are carried out frequently

Configuration of bundles is correctly managed

Legitimate exclusions are justified and documented

...

When calculating your compliance or risk, or in the event of an audit, it is very important to be sure of whether sub-capacity is applicable or not, because this can cause a great increase in your compliance risk (by a factor of 8 to 12) and a corresponding decrease in your position of strength in an IBM audit. This is why we attach particular importance to advising our clients on this point.

• Implementation of ILMT and ILMT / sub-capacity dashboards

Our teams can support you in setting up and configuring ILMT. In addition, to give our customers a continuous picture of their compliance and their eligibility for sub-capacity, we create Power BI dashboards that are directly linked to ILMT, making it possible to continuously monitor your eligibility for sub-capacity calculation and whether your PVU products are compliant. These tools and calculations have been proven in audits with clients.

• IBM maintenance gaps: example of a forgotten risk

The vast majority of compliance analyses carried out by commercial vendors, consultants or tool makers ignore the risk of IBM maintenance gaps, although it is one of the main sources of non-compliance during IBM audits.

For example, the organization may be decommissioning IBM software and has therefore stopped paying maintenance, but because the decommissioning project is behind schedule, deployments have continued without adequate maintenance. Alternatively, deployments are in process using available licenses, but the organization has neglected to activate the associated maintenance.