HCL Processor Value Licensing (PVU) for Distributed Software

A Processor Value Unit (PVU) is a unit of measure used to differentiate licensing of software Programs on distributed processor technologies (defined by Processor Vendor, Brand, Type and Model Number).

HCL defines a processor, for purposes of PVU-based licensing, to be each processor core on a chip (socket). Each Program has a unique price per PVU. See tools below to establish proper PVU rating of your configuration.

Licensee can deploy the Program using either:

  1. 1). Physical hardware environment at full capacity (“Full Capacity Licensing”)
    1. a. Licensee must obtain PVU entitlements sufficient to cover all activated processor cores* in the physical hardware environment made available to or managed by the Program, except for those servers from which the Program has been permanently removed.
    2. b. For any configuration able to take advantage of SW or HW acceleration methods (e.g. VM/Ware ESXi, LDOM, SMP, etc.) the rating per core will always be a minimum of 100 PVU for HCL Digital Experience and 70 PVU for HCL Commerce, HCL Connections, HCL Leap and HCL Domino.
    3. c. The use of virtualization technology provides the capability to achieve higher levels of software workload consolidation and utilization. Consequently, increased software value can be achieved with increased scalability as measured by the maximum number of processors on the server.
    4. d. Note, specific rules apply when there are more than two or more servers connected to form a Symmetric Multiprocessing Server, i.e., <4 processors = 70 per core, 4 processors = 100 per core, and 4> = 120 per core:
 

PVU Table Per Core

Processor Vendor Processor Name Proc. model number
Intel® Xeon® All post-Nehalem (launched 11/2008) Xeon Processor Models including Xeo(Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze)
Xeon® All pre-Nehalem Xeon Processor Models
3000 to 3399
5000 to 5499
7000 to 7499
Core® All i3, i5, i7, i9
AMD Opteron All
AMD EPYC All
HP Itanium All
IBM Power 10 E1080
E1050
S1022, L1022, S1022s, S1014, S1024 & L1024
Power 9 E980
E950
H922, H924, S914, S922 & S924
Any Any single-core All
 
Vendor Processor Name Server Model Number
Oracle / Sun / Fujitsu SPARC T4/T5/M7/S7/M8 T5-8, M7-8, M7-16, M8-8
Oracle / Sun / Fujitsu SPARC T4/T5/M7/S7/M8 T4-4, T5-4, T7-4, T8-4
Oracle / Sun / Fujitsu SPARC T4/T5/M7/S7/M8 T4-1, T4-1B,T4-2, T5-1B, T5-2, T7-1, T7-2, S7-2, S7-2L, T8-1, T8-2
 
  • * An activated processor core is a processor core that is available for use regardless of whether the capacity of the processor core can be or is limited through virtualization technologies, operating system commands, BIOS settings, or similar restrictions. Note, each minimum PVU value depends on the specific value in the PVU Table per core above.
  1. 2). Virtualization environment (“Sub-Capacity Licensing”)
    1. a. In a virtualized environment for configurable capacity (“Sub-Capacity Licensing”) a virtual processor core* is a unit of measurement that is used to determine the licensing cost of a program used in production and staging, and non production environments, as applicable to the license.
    2. b. For any configuration able to take advantage of SW or HW acceleration methods (e.g. VM/Ware ESXi, LDOM, SMP, etc.) the rating per core will always be a minimum of 100 PVU for HCL Digital Experience and 70 PVU for HCL Commerce, HCL Connections, HCL Leap and HCL Domino.
    3. c. When the Program is deployed in an eligible virtualized environment (see Definitions and eligible virtualization environments table below) as established by using virtualization software or a hosting cloud vendor, Licensee must obtain entitlements sufficient to cover all activated virtual processor cores made available to or managed by the Program.
    4. d. If the HCL program is the sole proprietor in a virtualized environment, then all of the active and potential vCPUs are counted.
    5. e. In the case of VMs without Kubernetes or OpenShift orchestration, which run on x86 public clouds such as Microsoft, AWS, Google, vCPU capacity is calculated for the maximum number of activated virtual processor cores (vCPUs) of the cloud services for shared and dedicated instances available to the Program. Refer to the Definitions and eligible virtualization environments table below.
    6. f. In the case of deploying onto public clouds using Kubernetes or OpenShift orchestration (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, IBM), vCPU capacity is calculated as the maximum number of allocated virtual processor cores (vCPUs) for specific licensed containers. This will be defined as the upper “cpu limit” as described in the deployment HELM chart for each licensable container.

Generally, for licensing within a virtualized environment, you may license to the lower of:

  • PVUs for the maximum number of physical cores in the server available to the Program at any given time.
  • PVUs for the maximum number of virtual processor cores in the virtual machines (“VM’s”) available to the Program at any given time.
 

Definitions and eligible virtualization environments:

VM – Virtual Machine (VMs) A VM represents a complete system with processors, memory, disk and network resourcby side on the same server
Virtual Core (vCPU) Each VM is assigned a virtual CPUs, i.e., vCPU. Each vCPU is (equal to one PVU) for the purpose of licensing.
Cluster A group of dedicated servers, that are linked together using vCenter Server (VM/Ware EFailover Clustering Feature to provide resources (i.e. processor core capacity) to the VMs.
AWS EC2 instances & Dedicated Instances
VMWare on Cloud
Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines
Azure VMware Solution
Google Google Compute Engine
Oracle Oracle VM Server for SPARC.
Logical Domain (LDOM): Virtual machine that runs an independent OS instance and contains virtualized CPU, memory and storage.

 

  • * An activated virtual processor core is a processor core that is available for use in a virtual server, regardless of whether the capacity of the processor core can be or is limited through virtualization technologies, operating system commands, BIOS settings, or similar restrictions. It is based on the maximum number of virtual processor cores defined and assigned by the VM and made available to the program. Hence, one virtual processor cores is the licensing unit equal to the PVU rating defined in the PVU Table for that hardware and processor architecture. Sub-capacity counting is only valid for eligible Virtualization Environments using VMs on physical servers as referenced in the Definitions and eligible virtualization environments table above.

3). Examples:

  • A) Single server example - Full Capacity
  • 2 Processor server with 6 cores per socket requires 840 PVUs (70 per core x 12 cores)
  • 4 Processor server with 6 cores per socket requires 2400 PVUs (100 per core x 24 cores)
  • 8 Processor server with 6 cores per socket requires 5760 PVUs (120 per core x 48 cores)

 

  • B) Two or more servers as an SMP server - Full Capacity
  • If sockets on two or more servers are connected to form a Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) Server, the maximum number of sockets and associated processor cores made available for use on the server increases. Therefore, when sockets on a 2 socket server with 6 cores per socket are connected to sockets on another 2 socket server with 6 cores per socket, this becomes an SMP server with a maximum of 4 sockets per server and 24 cores, and requires 2400 PVUs (100 per core x 24 cores).

 

  • C) Using Virtualization with Physical Servers – Sub Capacity
  • In an eligible Virtualized environment, if two VMs are deployed on a server that has two processors. Each processor has 8 physical cores which give 16 cores in total. Each VM is assigned 10 vCPUs. If an HCL program is installed only on the first VM and has access to 10 vCPUs. The number of vCPUs to license is 10. The second HCL program is installed on both VMs and thus has access to 20 vCPUs. Because the number of physical cores is lower than the number of vCPUs that are assigned to the VMs, the number of vCPUs to license is capped to 16.
  • Two VMs capped to 16 vCPUs requires 1120 PVUs (70 per core x 16 cores). This assumes that the vCPU is rated at 70 PVUs from the PVU Table above.
  • Licensee must maintain a record of total PVUs allocated to the product to be presented to HCL on request in accordance with HCL’s Master License Agreement.
  • HCL accepts the following reports as relevant input for calculating and validating the Full and Sub-Capacity Licensing.

 

  • D) When deploying onto Public Cloud Infrastructure
  • When calculating PVU requirements for public cloud deployments (Amazon AWS, Google GCP, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure), a flat rate of PVUs per virtual CPU (“vCPU”) or VPC is used. Simply count the number of vCPUs allocated and multiply by this flat rate.
  • The flat rate is 100 PVUs for HCL Digital Experience and 70 PVU for HCL Commerce, HCL Connections, HCL Leap and HCL Domino per vCPU.
  • For example, if you are deploying HCL Commerce and your virtual machine has 2 vCPUs, the number of PVUs required is 140 (2 x 70).

 

Product Family HCL PVU Calculator(1) Big Fix(2)
HCL Commerce Yes Yes
HCL Digital Experience v8.5 and v9 Yes Yes
HCL Leap 9.3.x Yes n/a
HCL Domino  (from V11) Yes n/a
HCL Domino  (through V10) Yes Yes
HCL Portal v8.5 and v9 Yes Yes
HCL Sametime (through v9) Yes Yes
HCL Web Content Manager v8.5 and v9 Yes Yes

 

  1. 1) The HCL supplied Sizing Calculator is available to HCL registered customers. The calculator is for guidance based on HCLs licensing rules. All results should be validated with HCL to ensure all deployment scenarios have been considered and are accurate Click here. (1)
  2. 2) HCL BigFix Inventory which includes PVU reporting for Virtual Deployments (2).
  3. 3) IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) which is a tool available to IBM Passport Advantage customers. IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) 'Audit Snapshot' report must be presented for full or Sub-Capacity reporting data for a minimum of 90-days. (3)
  4. 4) Using the correct PVU/vCPU value assumes the hyperthreading of cores is not being used or the customer can ensure that the BigFix Inventory or ILMT report is properly reflecting when hyperthreading of cores when is being used.

 

4). Guidelines for customers deploying HCL Digital Experience or HCL Domino to supported Kubernetes or OpenShift orchestration platforms

HCL customers who deploy HCL Digital Experience software to supported Kubernetes or OpenShift orchestration platforms are required to be licensed through the HCL Digital Experience Cloud Native 9.5 license model , located at the HCLSoftware License Agreements site.

HCL customers who deploy HCL Domino software to supported Kubernetes or OpenShift orchestration platforms are required to be licensed through the HCL Domino Complete Collaboration license model, located at the HCLSoftware License Agreements site.

5). Guidelines for Processor Value Unit (PVU) License requirements supporting Backup use:

The intent of the backup scenario is to enable the Licensee to continue to be operational if an emergency occurs. This is frequently referred to as backup use, disaster recovery or a backup and recovery service.

The following guidelines provide more detail about specific circumstances which might impact whether a license is required for specific backup configurations and is intended as a general licensing knowledge resource. While these guidelines present licensing implications of specific configurations, it is not intended to provide advice for individual Licensee circumstances. Always consult your HCL representative should you have any questions or concerns about backup and disaster recovery in your deployment.

Cold Standby, and Warm Standby server environments do not require additional PVU entitlements (provided that Cold Standby and Warm Standby server environments are not used for Production Use purposes).

Definitions

The following terms are defined for the purposes of these PVU license guidelines:

Backup – means Cold and Warm Standby

Cold Standby - Use of the Program for standby purposes that is installed and configured but not running.

Warm Standby - Use of the Program for standby purposes that is installed, configured and running but not performing Program Production Use activities. A Warm Standby environment must not have access to live Production Use data.

Production Use - Production Use means use of the Program that is started and is ”doing work”. “Doing Work”, includes, for example, production, development, program maintenance, and testing. It also could include other activities such as mirroring of transactions, updating of files, synchronization of programs, data or other resources (e.g. active linking with another machine, program, data base or other resource, etc.) or any activity or configurability that would allow an active hot-switch or other synchronized switch-over between programs, data bases, or other resources to occur.

A scheduled hardware outage, such as preventive maintenance or installation of upgrades, is not considered a Production Use situation.

Use of Program for Cold or Warm Standby

Licensee may use a copy of the HCL Program without charge solely for the purposes of Cold or Warm Standby. As part of Licensee’s audit obligations, HCL may request information relating to and review evidence of Licensee’s use of HCL Programs for this purpose.

If it is determined that a HCL Program intended for Backup has been or is in Production Use, HCL reserves the right in accordance with the Master License Agreement to require the customer to order, license, and pay the appropriate charges for those HCL Program(s).

 

6. Guidelines for Processor Value Unit (PVU) License Temporary Additional Use Policy:

Temporary additional use of licensed PVU entitlements of up to 90 days is permitted in a non-production environment for the following four scenarios only:

Covered scenarios:

  1. 1. Datacenter migrations
  2. 2. System to system [replacement] migrations
  3. 3. Program evolution and other Program to replacement Program migrations
  4. 4. Program version to replacement version (same Program) migrations

For more details, clients should contact their HCL sales representative.