Glossary

IBM i Software Economics Glossary

IBM i software licensing, tier, and TCO terminology, defined in plain English.

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• 5250 Enterprise Enablement — The IBM i entitlement that unlocks unrestricted 5250 green-screen interactive workload, bundled into the P20 and P30 subscription editions.

A

• ALF — After License Fee, the reinstatement penalty IBM charges when a lapsed SWMA contract is brought current again.

D

• DR — Disaster Recovery, the plan and infrastructure for restoring operations at a different site after a major outage.

H

• HA — High Availability, keeping a second system continuously synchronized so it can take over production workload within seconds to minutes of a failure.

I

• IBM i Software Tier — IBM's per-core software licensing classification for IBM i (P05, P10, P20, P30, P40, P50), tied to processor performance and determining OS and middleware pricing.
• ISV — Independent Software Vendor, a third-party publisher of IBM i software such as HA/DR, backup, security, or ERP add-on products.

L

• LPAR — Logical Partition, a virtual, independently licensed IBM i instance running on a shared physical Power server.

O

• OTC — One-Time Charge, the upfront purchase price of a perpetual software license before any annual SWMA is added.

P

• P05 — The entry IBM i software tier, subscription-only for new purchases and license transfers since May 7, 2024.
• P10 — The small-business IBM i software tier, also subscription-only for new purchases since May 7, 2024.
• P20 Standard Edition — A bundled IBM i subscription tier (available since July 15, 2025) that packages the OS subscription with additional entitlements IBM values above the standalone subscription price.
• P30 Enterprise Edition — A bundled IBM i subscription tier for larger enterprise partitions, priced at $24,500/core/year with a claimed bundle value over $52,000/core/year.
• P50 — IBM's top IBM i software tier, priced identically to P30 Enterprise Edition.
• Perpetual License — A software license purchased once (as an OTC) that does not expire, paired with optional annual SWMA for support and upgrades.
• PowerHA SystemMirror — IBM's OS-integrated high availability and disaster recovery clustering software for IBM i and AIX.

S

• Subscription License — A recurring annual IBM i software license fee, now the only option for new P05/P10 purchases and the structure behind the P20/P30 bundle tiers.
• SWMA — Software Maintenance, IBM's annual support and upgrade-entitlement fee for perpetually licensed IBM i software.

T

• TCO — Total Cost of Ownership, the full multi-year cost of a system or software stack including licensing, support, implementation, and operational cost.