License Entitlements For Permanent Processor Activations - IBM p5 590 System Handbook

4.10.1 License entitlements for permanent processor activations

Clients license an IBM operating system (for example, IBM i5/OS or IBM AIX 5L)
for a machine, and they purchase license entitlements based on the number of
processors in a dynamic LPAR or the shared processor pool. With AIX 5L on
POWER5 servers, sub-capacity licensing is allowed. That requires clients to
purchase license entitlements only for the total number of processors that AIX 5L
or selected IBM middleware is executing on. For example, if a client has a 16-way
server and is running AIX 5L applications on 12 processors and one of the Linux
distributions on the remaining four processors, the client must have 12 license
entitlements of AIX 5L. There are just a few rules to determine the number of
license entitlements required, depending on the environment.
Dedicated partition environment
In the dedicated partition environment, the rules require that the dynamic LPAR
be defined in increments of whole processors so the number of license
entitlements is equal to the number of processors dedicated to the dynamic
LPAR.
Shared partition environment
In the shared processor pool environment, dynamic LPARs may be defined with
less than a full processor entitlement. IBM does not license software products at
the sub-processor level even though Advanced POWER Virtualization allows
clients to define a dynamic LPAR with less than a full processor entitlement. For
software licensing, the client must round up to the next whole number to
determine how many license entitlements are required for the OS and
middleware executing in the partition. For example, a shared partition may be
defined with a 0.5 processor entitlement. However, for software programs
running in this 0.5 processor partition, either operating system or middleware, the
client must purchase a full license entitlement. There is also a difference in
calculating the entitlements for capped and uncapped partitions in the shared
environment. With capped partitions, the partition is defined with a maximum
processor unit value (PRU) which defines the maximum number of processors
units (virtual processors) the partition may consume. This value is the one used
to determine how many license entitlements are required for the partition.
As an example, if a capped partition is defined with PRU = 1.5 then the number
of license entitlements is rounded up to the next whole number and is equal to
two license entitlements. With Uncapped partitions, the partition is defined with a
max virtual processor (VP) value which defines the maximum number of physical
processors within the shared processor pool which may be concurrently
executing on behalf of the partition.
IBM Eserver p5 590 and 595 System Handbook
106