Reported metrics
Learn more about the license metrics that are measured and collected by License Service.
Core metrics
License Service is required for monitoring and measuring license usage of the IBM Cloud® Paks and IBM® stand-alone containerized software in accord with the pricing rule for containerized environments. Manual license measurements are not allowed.
License Service collects the license metrics that are eligible for container licensing and allows you to generate the audit report for their usage at the cluster level. This data is required for compliance and audit purposes.
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Virtual Processor Core (VPC) | A Virtual Processor Core is a license metric unit that is based on the number of virtual cores (vCPUs) that are available to the product. A vCPU is a virtual core that is assigned to a virtual machine or a physical processor core if the server is not partitioned for virtual machines. |
| Processor Value Unit | A Processor Value Unit (PVU) is a license metric unit that is based on the type and number of processors that are deployed on a server where the software is installed. For PVU-based licensing, IBM® defines a processor as a processor core on chip. |
Currently, License Service refreshes the data every 5 minutes. However, this might be subject to change in the future. With this frequency, you can capture changes in a dynamic cloud environment.
Non-core metrics
License Service collects information about the license usage of IBM® products that are licensed with other non-core metrics. These metrics are not supported by container licensing. However, you can track their license usage and determine your entitlement needs.
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Managed Virtual Server | A Managed Virtual Server (MVS) is a license metric unit that is based on the server instance whether it is physical or virtual. It eliminates the need to know what infrastructure the server runs on or what type of hardware resources the server being managed is consuming. |
Information about license usage of the products that use non-core metrics is delivered to License Service regularly. In most cases, the licensing data is delivered daily. For some products, the data can be delivered even a few times a day. After each delivery, License Service recalculates all available data for the day, analyses all values, and then reports the highest license usage for the product.
Each data transfer can deliver information from the last seven days. Then, License Service recalculates the license usage of the product for this period, and shows the newly calculated highest usage. The recalculation does not impact the values prior to this seven-day period.
Note: Because the license usage data for non-core metrics can be delivered with different frequency and for up to seven days back, the values on the reports that you retrieve might differ.