Re: Acquiring a used IBM i Server - (repost)

Agreed that it SHOULD be in there but it's NOT just software, nor is it simple. Consider machines with multiple partitions, the firmware has to be there to add it up. Otherwise you'd just install 20 partitions on your one core each with those 2 users. :-)

Then consider this. A while back I was listening to an IBMer speak to a group of users. "You all think that IBM can't count. Well that's not correct, we CAN count, in fact IBM is very good at counting. What we have an issue with is WHEN to count. For example, when do we count a user? We don't count our internal users such as QSECOFR or QPGMR because we use those in the O/S so it's probably not fair to charge you for those. But should we count the user APOWNER which never signs on and does not do any work as it is used simply to own all the objects for an application? Our users think we should not. But do we count user IAN twice when he's signed on to the system two times, how about three, or thirty? Our users say no again because multiple sessions are useful. Some say 'well if they all come from the same IP address that means they are one user." I'm not a network expert but I'm told desktop virtualization can make many users appear at the same IP and so can this thing NAT. So that doesn't work either. If we allowed this we get the entire company signing on as the one user IAN to avoid additional user charges. Finally consider the many web applications where the user doesn't even sign on, how do we count those? You see it's not cut and dried and that's our conundrum."

Check Microsoft. How do they enforce user and device CALs on their servers??

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 2/3/2018 12:19 PM, Bradley Stone wrote:

If they can't do it, then their infrastructure for licensing is poor and
needs updating.

It should be all software based for licensing. Should be a license key
that activates or deactivates certain features, CPU, etc.

But when you get an invoice from IBM you remember they are still in the 80s
as far as that goes.

Sometimes I think they (and others.. not just IBM) worry more about making
"big bucks" they forget that a nice small continuous trickle of money can
in the end be better than a few big sales.

But what would I know... ;)

Bradley V. Stone
www.bvstools.com
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