z/OS Software Pricing Workshop

Home Education z/OS Software Pricing Workshop

The purpose of this on-site workshop is simple:

To show you how to contain and often reduce your z/OS software costs! Because software is the largest cost of running z/OS, it’s the area where you can make the largest savings. But z/OS also runs your business, so you need to protect your service levels. This very interactive workshop shows you how to get the most value from the broad array of cost-saving pricing options and technologies that IBM and other vendors make available to you, without doing anything that will adversely affect the service you provide.

Why do you need this three-day workshop?

  • You’ll learn about the 20+ software pricing options from IBM, most from the last three years.
  • You’ll learn how IBM is trying to move every customer to Country Multiplex Pricing (CMP) and Tailored Fit Pricing (TFP). They sound good, but they’re not always to your company’s benefit. We can show you how to get the maximum use of these options, if at all.
  • You’ll understand the ramifications of IBM trying to flip MLC pricing to OTC (One Time Charges), and why that may or may not be to your benefit.
  • You’ll learn how many z/OS sites use static soft-capping to control their software costs.  Other sites don’t use capping at all, for fear of the impact on their SLAs.  In either case, you become familiar with the methods and products for soft-capping and dynamically capping your workloads to take maximum advantage of sub-capacity pricing.
  • You’ll learn how to bring your technical and procurement staffs work together to find the optimum configuration from both the financial and performance perspectives.
  • You’ll learn when your performance analysts can best tune the system to reduce software costs, and make sure that your tuning efforts are aimed at the intervals that drive your bills.
  • You’ll learn how to get the best deal from your non-IBM software vendors.  Many now support sub-capacity pricing, but only if you ask for it.
  • You’ll learn how to prepare for (and possibly avoid) the inevitable software audit.

What is the workshop objective?

We’ll describe all of the currently-available IBM pricing options for z/OS software products and when to use them, how to choose the right one for each product, how system or configuration changes impact your ability to keep within your contract, how hardware changes affect the software contracts, and how the system technical staff can work with the procurement staff to ensure that your software contracts are providing the best value for your money.

You will be amazed at how many people in your service delivery organization can impact your costs without even being aware that there is a relationship between their actions and your bill.  Changes that make perfect sense from a purely technical perspective could easily increase your bill.  To really optimize your costs, everyone in your organization must understand the basics of software pricing, and how software pricing intersects with their job role.

This workshop is specifically designed to encourage interaction between your colleagues, not just on the days of the workshop, but on an ongoing basis.  We have found that far more value is derived from the workshop when all attendees can talk openly about financial matters, and do not feel intimidated about asking questions in front of strangers – this is why this workshop is only offered as an on-site, single-customer, offering.  The attendees should include representatives from your systems programming, performance analysis, capacity planning, production control, application development, operations, procurement teams, and at least one first-line manager – you are welcome to have as many attendees as you can fit in your classroom.

Here’s an idea of what we’ll cover.

  • Description of all pricing options and types of contracts: AWLC, AEWLC, WLC, EWLC, MWLC, zNALC, zELC, PSLC, ULC, SALC, VU, OOCoD, zIPLA, SVC, MVM, TTO, TUP, MWP, zCAP, zWPC, CMLC, SE, MzNALC, TFP (all the options), SCLC and more.
  • Understanding IBM’s pricing tools: SCRT, VU Converter, zPCR, LSPR, zSoftCap, and zBNA.
  • The relationship between the pricing options you select (MWP, for example), and how you configure your systems, subsystems, and your workload routing.
  • All about zIIPs – costs, performance, capacity planning, and SMT.
  • zEDC and other compression options and how to use them to optimize your overall costs.
  • The differences between MIPS, MSUs, service units, and CPU time, along with solid technical advice about how to get the maximum number of MIPS from your CPCs.
  • Sub-capacity pricing, rolling 4-hour average (R4HA), consumption based pricing, and capping mechanisms.
  • In-depth focus on MWP – IBM’s pricing option for mobile workloads.
  • zCAP – another new pricing option to let you add new workloads with minimal additional costs.
  • zWPC – another new pricing option, this time for cloud-based workloads.
  • The game-changing impact of Country Multiplex Pricing on any company with more than one CPC or more than one site.
  • Tailored Fit Pricing (expansion of older container pricing) is both an infrastructure and a set of pricing options.  We describe the infrastructure so that you will be ready for the pricing options, so you can decide which, if any, are right for you.
  • Changing your configuration to minimize software costs.
  • Real world hints and tips and gotchas to watch out for.
  • Preparing now for your next ELA or ESO.
  • How to avoid costly penalties from software audits.
  • Understanding which pricing options can be used together and determining which option is best.

How do I know if this workshop is right for my company?

Talk to us.  We will be happy to discuss your questions and your environment, and help you determine if a workshop would be valuable to you.  Every run of this workshop to date has saved customers far more than the cost of the workshop, and we don’t want to break our track record.  You can contact us by phone on +1-941-924-6565, or by email at technical@watsonwalker.com.