----SNARK ENGAGED
One of my absolute favorite things in my daily job is PVU's. I just loving being the bad news bear to a customer that was sold the wrong thing.
---SNARK DISENGAGED

I get asked this a lot:
How do I know how many PVU's I need for Domino?


For this post I am presuming you are running a physical Domino server (aka 'full capacity licensing'). Virtual will be covered in a later post. This also presumes Intel architecture.

If you know the steps it is pretty straightforward:

1) Find out the CPU count, model and cores.
2) Use the PVU calculator to give you a heart attack
3) Pay IBM tons of money because you are so far out of compliance you can see Uranus from where you are

Simple eh?

OK, a bit more detail.....

1) On the server in question where Domino is running (I'm presuming Windows, if you are a Linux doobie surely you know what make and model of CPU you are running) open the 'System' applet from the 'Control Panel':

Image:Doing the do with the PUV - or ’How many PVU’s do I need?’ - Physical server edition

Take a note of the CPU model number (in this case an Intel Xeon X5450).

2) Using Google (or Newegg which I prefer) go find out how many cores there are in this model of CPUs. Here is the above CPU from Newegg:

Image:Doing the do with the PUV - or ’How many PVU’s do I need?’ - Physical server edition

As you can see it is quad-core.

Next find out how many CPUs are installed on the system by rebooting and going into BIOS or asking you hardware guy. I have two CPUs in my example server. So that is eight cores in total.

Another alternative is to use CPUID if you are able to install software on the server.

On a side topic, some may suggest looking at device manager, but hyperthreading can cause that number to double.

2) With the model (X5450) and the core count (eight) I will now either call STS or go to the dreaded PVU calculator provided by IBM. The actual table illustrated below is available here and should be checked periodically for new additions.

With my model number in hand (5450), I match that to the "Processor  Model Number" shown in red. I then record the "PVUs per Core" result from the same row, shown in blue (in this case 50).

Image:Doing the do with the PUV - or ’How many PVU’s do I need?’ - Physical server edition
With the number of cores (8) and the PUVs per core (50) I now do some math. Basically I multiply one with the other:

8 x 50 = 400

The total PUVs required to run Domino on this server is 400 PVUs. You only have 100 right? ;)

3) There are ways around this rather huge price. One is to virtualize the server, the other to change your licenses to something more suitable to your size of business. Again STS can help with that.

Note
There are certain products and entitlements that don't require PVUs but that is probably another post. If you are PVU licensed then you also require Domino licenses for and Traveler and BES servers in your domain.

Also, any change or upgrade to the actual server may require more licenses. For example when we upgrade the example server to Intel Xeon 56xx CPU (aka Westmere) then the PVU calculation changes too. It goes up to 70 PVUs per core. Similarity going from a dual core to a quad or six core CPU changes the total.
Darren Duke   |   November 19 2010 08:46:52 AM   |    domino  pvu    |  
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Discussion for this entry is now closed.

Comments (10)

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1 - Flemming Riis       11/19/2010 10:53:38 AM

the newest table from ibm states up to 120 pvu pr core on the large intel series

so thats 720 for one cpu , the current express document (at least when i checked this monday) stats that your arent alloved to use more than 400 pvu for lotus utility express server

so to use lotus utility express you have to disable 3 cores.

Hopefully they will revisit the limit

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2 - Eric Mack    http://www.EricMackOnline. com    11/19/2010 12:33:00 PM

Amazing.

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3 - Craig Wiseman    http://www.wiseman.La/cpw    11/19/2010 1:45:58 PM

Time to play "compare & contrast"...

Ask "how much will it cost" and look at what Domino customers have to do (above)

Now go here:

{ http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/how-to-buy.aspx }

The big decision is "online" or not. "online" is old lingo for "cloud".

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4 - Steve Medure       11/19/2010 2:51:34 PM

I just had some similar thoughts on this. The PVU method is rather annoying.

{ http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/LotusLand/entry/ibm_license_metric_tool_didn_t_detect_domino?lang=en }

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5 - Flemming Riis       11/21/2010 2:21:20 PM
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6 - Tony Frazier    http://www.tonyfrazier.com    11/21/2010 8:39:49 PM

I think Dilbert may be on to something today... { http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-11-21/ }

On a serious note, I had a customer that wanted to upgrade some hardware for their Domino server(s) a few months ago. No new or different Domino license, just an upgrade for aging hardware. They wanted to know what IBM/Lotus was providing for the increased software license charge since they had already paid their vendor for the hardware upgrades.

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7 - Darren Duke    http://blog.darrenduke.net    11/22/2010 9:55:50 AM

And @6, that is a very good question. They should call their local IBM and Lotus reps and/or issue a PMR asking that question.

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8 - Anthony Miller       11/23/2010 12:33:28 PM

Really? Traveler requires a Domino license? @#$!@$##$ IBM....

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9 - Sean Cull    http://www.seancull.co.uk    12/02/2010 3:04:32 AM

Darren,

a post on VMware or subcapacity licencing would be very useful too.

Thanks, very useful.

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10 - Best VPS Hosting    http://www.streamedservers.com/    12/27/2011 9:41:57 AM

On a serious note, I had a customer that wanted to upgrade some hardware for their Domino server(s) a few months ago. No new or different Domino license, just an upgrade for aging hardware. They wanted to know what IBM/Lotus was providing for the increased software license charge since they had already paid their vendor for the hardware upgrades.