IBM WebSphere licensing and audit defense.

WebSphere editions are licensed primarily by Processor Value Unit, a core-based metric. On Intel cores the rate is roughly 70 PVU per core, so the entitlement you need scales with the cores the software can run on. Sub-capacity licensing lets you license the virtual cores allocated to WebSphere rather than every physical core in the host, but only when ILMT is deployed and reporting correctly. Without that evidence, IBM charges full capacity by default.

• Full-capacity default. If ILMT was not installed within 90 days, not running continuously, or its quarterly reports were not retained for two years, sub-capacity rights fall away and every physical core is charged.
• IBM HTTP Server scope. Bundled components such as the IBM HTTP Server and plug-ins are sometimes counted as separately licensable, inflating the claim beyond what the entitlement actually covers.
• Network Deployment counting. WebSphere ND nodes and the Deployment Manager can be miscounted across a cell, pulling cores into scope that should not be there.
• Term versus perpetual confusion. Mixed term and perpetual entitlements get reconciled against a single install base, producing phantom shortfalls.

We rebuild the WebSphere PVU calculation from your own ILMT and topology data, separate genuinely licensable components from bundled ones, and validate sub-capacity eligibility against the deployment record. Where IBM has defaulted you to full capacity, we assemble the evidence to restore the virtual count, and we credit back entitlement offsets left out of the draft findings.