For example your company is a retailer and you knew that your application usage will rocketed during peak season (mid-year / end-year holiday. Based on previous trend you can estimate that you would need 50% more capacity during these peak period. Problem is with the current licensing model, you are forced to buy / extend license for the whole 150% capacity even if 1/3 of it is idle for 8 months.
The same scenario also apply to the user license since extra workload would translate to extra staff. More people need to be hired during the peak season to handle the extra load.
Now as a user I would like to have an on premise license that could expand / contract on monthly basis. That way I only have to pay extra for those 4 months during peak season and not waste money on the remaining months paying for stuff that I did not use.
What about current licensing options, can they handle these scenario ?
1. xWorks would do the trick IF I only have application AND accessing them via browser. What if I need mail or need the replication / offline feature of Notes Client / Nomad ? AFAIK you cannot buy xWorks if you already have other type of license, for example if you are already an IBM Customer.
2. CEO would only answer the PVU problem, the user license issue would still be unsolved
3. Monthly based PVU / User would in theory answer the problem. However, I am unclear whether this extra license is bought / rent ? If bought and renewed, then we would have the same problem all over again.
Please read this : https://blog.hcltechsw.com/domino/licensing-update-domino-v12-and-key-ccx-enhancement/
and this https://blog.hcltechsw.com/domino/licensing-update-hcl-complete-collaboration-ccb-guest-licensing/
Fixed term licensing is also available for Client Access Licenses. However, we are reviewing our license models for making it more simple & more flexible for our customers.
Thomas, I think the point is different. Some customers could need some extra users just for a short period. As far as I know (let me say, more than 20 years in Lotus/IBM licencing) there is no way to buy user licences only for few months. If I am wrong, please, let me know what do you suggest.
Regarding Enterprise Server (PVU licence) you have to buy user/client licence too.
My IBM reps told me that XWorks can only be bought as a packaged solution with the application. You cannot buy only XWorks licenses. They also say that XWorks is web browser only and cannot be mixed with existing licenses.
CEO Bundles would work but the above scenario would usually means that the number of my users also expanded during the peak season so I would need to pay for the extra idle user resources as well.
I will ask my sales reps about the fixed-term license.
Various licensing options already exist, e.g. the XWork Server https://www.ibm.com/us-en/marketplace/xwork-server where only the number of apps are counted but not the processor value units . Also the Complete Enterprise Option bundle https://www.ibm.com/collaboration/ibm-domino/ceo-bundles where you can have unlimited PVU's and unlimited number of servers.
Apart from that you can get Enterprise Server (PVU license) as a fixed-term license, e.g. monthly license, just contact your IBM sales representative.