① Guide · Broadcom (CA)
A Broadcom (CA) True Forward only ever moves the contract one direction: up. It is a calculation, and calculations can be wrong. Here is how it works, where it overreaches, and how buyers contest the number.
A true up looks both ways. A True Forward only looks up.
True Forward is the consumption reconciliation built into Broadcom (CA) mainframe agreements. At the measurement point, your actual MIPS consumption is compared to the contracted baseline. Where consumption ran above the baseline, the excess is trued forward into the go forward contract value. The asymmetry is the part buyers most often miss: where consumption ran below the baseline, a True Forward generally does not refund the difference in cash. Under consumption is typically something you reclaim at the next renewal, if you negotiate for it, rather than money back in the current period.
The practical effect is a ratchet. Each reconciliation can lift the contract floor, and the new floor becomes the baseline against which the next reconciliation is measured. Left unmanaged, the number compounds. That is not a reason to fear the mechanism; it is a reason to treat every True Forward as a calculation to be audited rather than an invoice to be paid.
Because the whole thing rests on a measured consumption figure, it inherits every weakness of measurement: which products were counted, how peaks were read, whether one off events inflated the number, and whether capacity grew for reasons unrelated to the licensed workload. Each of those is contestable with your own data.
Request the complete True Forward working: the baseline used, the measured consumption, the products in scope, the measurement window, and the peak methodology. A number without its derivation cannot be reconciled and should not be paid.
Measured consumption is validated independently against your records. Vendor consumption figures are an opening position; they commonly rely on the least favorable reading at each fork, and they rarely survive independent recalculation intact.
Disaster recovery tests, migrations, batch anomalies, and other non recurring events that drove a peak are identified and excluded where the contract allows. A baseline set by a single abnormal window does not represent steady state consumption.
Products folded into the measurement that are idle, retired, or outside the reconciled set are challenged. The True Forward should reflect the consumption of what you actually run, not the full historical bundle.
The settlement negotiates the baseline, capacity caps, peak handling, event exclusions, and a defined reclaim path for under consumption. Fixing this True Forward matters less than making the next one fair.
The ratchet is negotiable. Both this turn and the next.
With the full calculation in hand, an independent recalculation, and the one off peaks stripped out, a True Forward stops being a fixed addition to the contract and becomes a number Broadcom has to defend. Across our Broadcom engagements, buyer side preparation commonly recovers 20 to 35 percent against the opening position, and just as importantly resets the measurement rules so the next reconciliation does not compound the last.
When a True Forward lands alongside a renewal, read it with responding to a Broadcom renewal uplift and bring in Broadcom (CA) renewal advisory. If a compliance review is attached, see Broadcom (CA) audit defense. For the metric underneath it all, the MIPS explainer shows why consumption measurement decides the bill.
The consumption reconciliation in Broadcom (CA) agreements. Actual MIPS consumption is compared to the baseline, and excess is trued forward into the contract value. It generally does not refund under consumption in cash; that is typically reclaimed only at renewal.
Yes. It is a calculation. Common dispute points are the measured consumption, the products in scope, one off peak readings, and capacity growth unrelated to the licensed workload. Independent recalculation commonly moves it.
A true up reconciles both ways and can credit under consumption. A True Forward typically carries excess forward without crediting cash for under consumption in the same period, which is why the measured excess has to be verified before it sets the new floor.
Negotiate the baseline and the measurement rules, not just the current number. Capacity caps, agreed peak handling, event exclusions, and a reclaim path keep the next reconciliation from compounding.