Case study v · IBM · Sub-Capacity Verification · Fixed Fee

Insurance group cuts IBM PVU exposure by 71% through a sub-capacity audit.

A UK insurance group running 240 WebSphere, MQ and Db2 instances on virtualised infrastructure received an IBM notice asserting incomplete ILMT data and demanding full-capacity licensing — roughly $9M in additional fees.

Result · $6.4M Avoided

The engagement

What Admodum did.

Comprehensive ILMT deployment audit across all virtualised environments.
Identified 22 servers where data collection had been disrupted by infrastructure changes.
Rebuilt historical PVU consumption using IBM-acceptable methodologies.
Engaged IBM Software License Compliance directly with documented sub-capacity entitlement.
Negotiated retroactive preservation of sub-capacity status and implemented an ongoing ILMT monitoring framework.

The outcome

What the client achieved.

$6.4M in proposed compliance fees avoided.
Sub-capacity entitlement preserved for all 240 instances.
No full-capacity reset triggered; ongoing ILMT framework reduces future exposure.
Completed in 5 months.

The lesson

What the case teaches.

Most sub-capacity findings come from ILMT data gaps, not actual over-deployment. A buyer-side ILMT audit before vendor escalation almost always resolves the issue at a fraction of the threatened cost.

Engagement details

How it ran.

Duration: 5 months
Team: 2 advisors, including a former IBM SLP specialist
Model: fixed fee ($145K)
ROI: 44x

Engage

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Independence

Client identities are anonymised under engagement-letter confidentiality. Admodum is not a partner, reseller, or affiliate of IBM, or of any other software vendor.