IBM Licence Management

One Partner For All Your IBM Licensing Challenges

IBM is one of the most complex software vendors to manage. With over 200 licensing metrics and continually changing requirements, it can be difficult for organisations to keep on top of their rights and obligations.

Invictus Partners can help you with all aspects of your IBM software licensing and the seemingly inevitable audit challenges. Proactive action is key to minimising your risk of significant financial penalties from when the IBM auditors come knocking.

We commonly help IBM customers with:

Ongoing management of IBM’s accepted licence management tool, ILMT;
Software licence optimisation and software asset management (SAM); and
IBM audit defence and negotiations.

Invictus Partners offers three IBM licence advisory services: ILMT management, IBM licence optimisation, and IBM audit defence. We follow a proven methodology for IBM licensing engagements, which we adapt to each organisation’s unique situation.

IBM software licensing management services

ILMT-as-a-Service

Invictus Partners can either take over the management of your existing ILMT install, and provide the support, knowledge and report collateral you need to effectively manage your IBM licence usage and stay compliant; or quickly and efficiently set up this tool and run it as a service if it’s not in place today.

This monthly managed service frees up your existing ILMT/BigFix physical server and human support resources by providing:

A monthly usage and compliance report maintained for IBM’s mandated period (currently 24 months);
A quarterly audit snapshot;
Support to rectify any over-licence deployments and ensure the right actions are taken to address any potential issues; and
Advisory to ensure that any IBM Passport Advantage terms and condition changes do not impact your existing contract (IBM regularly announces changes to Passport Advantage).

Invictus Partners’ ILMT Cloud Service is performed by highly skilled ex-IBM software licensing and auditing personnel and is completely independent of IBM business partner or governance channels. Our reporting is confidential, with all data held on our own private servers. We contract this service on a monthly basis and is ideal for customers who’s IBM software is licensed by the more complex IBM licensing metrics including sub-capacity metrics known as Processor Value Unit (PVU), User Value Unit (UVU), Resource Value Unit (RVU) Tiers (terabytes), or Tokens. On many occasions, the service commences with a baseline audit. This prepares your business for the managed service including the provision of advisory services to remediate any of the challenges or realise any opportunities identified.

IBM software licence optimisation

Optimising your IBM estate and remaining compliant can be challenging. Software asset management (SAM) is the practice of reviewing your usage on a regular basis to ensure compliance whilst optimising for increased flexibility or reduced cost.

Invictus Partners offers a monthly IBM SAM service that includes:

Advice on how to meet obligations set down by IBM in the Passport Advantage contractual requirements;
Monthly reporting on the deployment of all IBM software products against current entitlements; and
Suggestion of remediation actions for any identified over- or under-deployment of IBM licences.

IBM audit defence service

Invictus Partners’ IBM Audit Defence minimises the impact of a software audit on your organisation, significantly reducing the stress and hours involved in managing the process and providing the required audit data every step of the way.

Invictus Partners works with your in-house technical and legal teams on the most appropriate strategy to deal with that all too familiar receipt of IBM Audit notification. The Invictus offering provides a comprehensive range of services to help organisations through all phases of the audit. These services include:

Managing communications and data flows between the organisation and IBM or their appointed auditor
Briefing and advisory to legal and executives
Internal communications and briefings to instruct on following engagement protocols and minimise risks where possible.

The phases of an IBM Audit Engagement are:

Internal IBM licence audit

As a first step, Invictus Partners advises you on the most appropriate way to respond to an IBM audit request. We help you gain the required time from IBM to perform an internal audit prior to data being shared and such that the business is briefed on the potential outcomes, post data being shared.

Active IBM software audit defence

Invictus Partners actively manages the process of data flow between the parties protecting our clients’ staff and contractors against often innocuous communications that are sometimes deemed admissions of fault that are often used and recorded within the Audit Findings.

Avoid IBM software audit penalties

Invictus will review your Audit Findings and assist in fighting, compromising and negotiating a settlement depending on the client situation.

Our IBM software licence review process

There are three key steps in our IBM licensing engagements:

Entitlements Review – Obtain and consolidate entitlements via Proof of Entitlements (POE), including quantities and metrics for IBM software.
Architectural Review – Inspect IT architecture to gather IBM usage data across the environment and gain visibility of what IBM software is installed on which servers.
IBM SAM Capability Review – Compare entitlements and usage from the reporting outputs versus IBM usage rights terms and conditions.

Why choose Invictus Partners for IBM licence management?

The Invictus Partners team consists of former IBM vice presidents, IBM Software Line of Business Executives, former IBM compliance practitioners, IBM contracting professionals and business analysts. We have over 60 years of IBM licensing experience and can effectively assist you through the entire IBM optimisation and audit process. Through our in-depth knowledge of IBM’s licensing and approach, we have developed a proven methodology and strategy that strengthens your position, reduces your risks, and ensures you are treated fairly throughout the licence optimisation and audit process.

Book a 30-minute consultation with our IBM licensing experts

Russell Sands – Partner

Russell is a 25+ year veteran of the IT industry holding numerous Account Director roles spanning the US software vendors including IBM, Oracle and Computer Associates, start-up ISVs, local system integrators and service providers.

With much of his career spent advocating for his customers’ needs and requirements inside these gigantic software vendors, Russell now brings this knowledge client-side to best prepare, arm and position organisations for dealings with the global players.

Whether it’s extracting requirements from highly political internal environments, briefing and advising executives and stakeholders, or advocating and negotiating on behalf of customers, Russell has only his clients’ best interests at heart.

By using his inside knowledge of the vendors, their licensing, bundles, promotions and modus operandi, Russell works to get the optimal pricing and value-adds in any deal.

Sue Hope – Specialist Software Licence Advisor

Sue is a 36+ year veteran of the IT industry, holding numerous Brand Unit Executive roles across IBM. Her experience and knowledge of IBM products, processes and channels is extensive. In her roles she was responsible for total Lines of Business from P&L, Sales & Inside Sales, Technical, Marketing to Operations. Her knowledge of the customer base and experience helps her to advise customers on the best possible action for a positive business outcome.

Sue has been involved in assisting many customers with the optimisation and management of their IBM Software platform. Her understanding of the contractual process allows her to offer the best advice for a positive outcome on vendor audits and software audits. She is a certified SAM Consultant with IAITAM – International Association for IT Asset Managers (annual certification). She has helped customers across various industries including Health, State & Local Government, Finance & Insurance, Education, Manufacturing and Construction to successfully defend against software audits and optimise their ongoing software costs.