IBM Integration Bus licensing principle on distributed explained

CPU Licensing principle for Distributed

Proper license has to be acquired in order to use IBM Integration Bus in a licensed environment.

The license agreement is related to the number of CPUs used by the IBM Integration Bus (IIB).

The number of CPUs used depends on the environment where the IBM Integration Bus is installed as the following figure shows:

If the IBM Integration Bus is installed on a non virtualized machine then the number of CPUs to take into consideration for license point of view is the total number of CPUs installed on that machine.

In a x86 virtualized environment, it is possible to allocate a variable number of CPUs to a virtual machine. In this environment the IIB is running in a virtual machine and the number of CPU to take into account for a license point of view is the number of virtual CPU allocated to this virtual machine with a maximum set to total number of physical CPU. This mean that if IIB is running in only one virtual machine having one virtual CPU, the number of CPU to take into account for the license will be 1 even though this virtual CPU is mapped to a physical CPU that is shared with other virtual machines. In the same way, if IIB is running in two virtual machines sharing the same physical CPU, each virtual machine having 1 virtual CPU mapped to the same physical CPU, the number of CPU to take into account for the license will be 2.

In a Power/ZSeries, it is possible as in the distributed environment to allocate a variable number of CPUs to a LPAR. However in this environment it is possible to share a CPU between LPARs with the restriction that a minimum of one CPU has to be taken into consideration for the license point of view. If we take the same example used above in the x86 environment then if IIB is running in only one LPAR having a micro partition of CPU, meaning that the LPAR is sharing the physical CPU with other LPARs, the number of CPU to take into account for the license will be 1. However if IIB is running on two LPARs sharing the same physical CPU, then the number of CPU to take into account for the license will still be 1.

IBM Integration Bus Editions Licensing

There are three mains edition available for IBM Integration Bus: express, standard and advanced.

The express edition targets customers that have a basic set of features and have only low capacity requirements. In this mode only a subset of message flow nodes can be used and only one Integration Server can be created by Integration Node. The available subset of nodes can be found at the following link (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSMKHH_9.0.0/com.ibm.etools.mft.doc/an67720_.htm?lang=en)

In the Standard Edition all the message flow nodes can be used (except the decision service node used to execute business rules and that requires specific entitlements). The limitation in this mode is that only one Integration Server can be created by Integration Node. The license doesn't restrict however the number of integration nodes.

In the Advanced Edition there are no limitation on the number of Integration Server per Integration Node. The restriction on the decision service remains.

The following figure shows this principle for the Standard and Advanced Edition:

Please note that this is my point of view and I am speaking for myself and not on behalf of IBM.