The advantages of Processor Value Units [PVUs]

Why did IBM introduce Processor Value Units?

Customers tell us that the widespread adoption of multi-core chips has presented them with a number of challenges. Among the key challenges are:

• More complex licensing structures.
• Unique licensing requirements for differing technologies since processor cores often do not get faster in later generations.
• The need to support the leading virtualization technologies.

Facing these challenges, customers are asking IBM for:

• As simple a licensing structure as possible, understanding that simplicity needs to be balanced against precise measurements of the potential value that a customer receives from their middleware.
• Greater flexibility in deploying middleware licenses on servers that use multi-core chip technologies, using sub-capacity licensing where they have partitioned those systems more granularly.
• Continued middleware price performance improvements as the underlying hardware performance improves.

When PVUs were initially introduced in July, 2006, our focus was on converting customers from per processor to processor value units without changing customer prices for IBM middleware deployed on existing processors. With this successfully accomplished, we are using the introduction of new processor families, such as x86 quad-core, SPARC64 VI and POWER6™ to begin the evolution to a structure based on relative performance.