Early 2019 IBM “announced” a new, more friendly approach to their traditional license compliance verification. The new program is called IBM Authorized SAM Provider (IASP) Offering.
TIP #25 - January 2020: A short explanation of IBM's new audit approach IASP - can it be beneficial for your organisation?
This program is on invitation basis only and so far about 30 customers signed up worldwide. IBM’s main objective for this program is to increase customer satisfaction.
Signing up for this program (as an alternative for a traditional audit or software license review) is possible for a maximum period of 3 years. When you adhere to the IASP conditions, IBM will not send you an audit notification letter during this period.
The IASP program looks like a successor of the previously known LMO (License Management Option) program. Customers will have to collaborate with an external SAM/ITAM service provider. This service provider will help the customer to install and implement ILMT, analyse software deployments and customers PA entitlements. All IBM metrics, not only PVU based metric, are in scope. The activities performed by the service provider are similar to those during a regular audit. The customer will have to negotiate with the service provider on pricing and services and also will have to pay for the external service provider (not funded by IBM). This is in contrast to traditional audits, where IBM pays for the auditor.
The benefits for the customer are that IBM will allow you to purchase the license shortage at your regular PA Band commercial terms & conditions, and no back-maintenance will be charged. Sub-capacity licensing will be adhered because of a correct ILMT implementation and it is expected that there will be no Full-capacity charges regardless of a historical ILMT status.
We expect customers using Flexera tooling will also be honored for Sub-capacity conditions (based on correct implementation, conform terms & conditions etc.).
This program may be beneficial for your organisation. We advise you to analyse and weigh the advantages against the cost of the IASP program. On top of the investment for the service provider, running the program will also need you to invest in time and resources within your organisation.