Welcome to the IBM System z Software Pricing Website, designed to help you understand IBM's mainframe software licensing/pricing terms and conditions. This website offers:
- an overview of IBM's mainframe software pricing
- news about changes to IBM's mainframe software licensing/pricing
- downloadable tools related to IBM System z software pricing
System z software pricing refers to both the pricing and the licensing terms and conditions for IBM software products that run in a mainframe environment. IBM's mainframe software portfolio includes IBM operating system software (z/OS, z/TPF, z/VM, and z/VSE) and middleware that runs on these operating systems. IBM also offers a collection of tools to manage the mainframe environment and a set of software that executes in host-based Linux environment. IBM mainframe software pricing is grouped into two categories:
- Monthly License Charge (MLC) software
- includes license fees and support costs
- governed by IBM Customer Agreement (ICA) contract
- applies to IBM software products such as z/OS, OS/390, DB2, CICS, IMS and WebSphere MQ
- establishes terms and price points by applying an appropriate MLC pricing metric, such as AWLC, AEWLC, WLC, EWLC, MWLC, zNALC,zELC and PSLC
- determines the MLC pricing metric based on customer choice and/or mainframe environment
- International Product License Agreement (IPLA) software
- requires up-front, one time license fee and ongoing, optional, annual subscription and support charges
- governed by the IPLA contract
- applies to IBM software products such as Data Management Tools, Application Development Tools and Systems Management Tools
- applies to IBM software products for a host-based Linux environment, such as WebSphere Application Server for Linux on System z
- most commonly, IPLA programs running under z/OS or z/VM have Value Unit (VU) pricing
- most commonly, IPLA programs running under host-based Linux have Processor Value Unit (PVU) pricing
