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Com-plete is Software AG's z/OS TP monitor, a CICS alternative tied to the Adabas and Natural estate. That tie is where the cost sits and where the leverage lives. Here is the metric and what to pull at renewal, from the buyer side.
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Get expert help →Com-plete is Software AG's transaction processing monitor for z/OS, positioned as an alternative to CICS that pairs a conventional TP monitor with a built in application development environment. It hosts online Natural applications and other transaction workloads and connects to Adabas through a link routine, so in practice it almost never stands alone: it lives inside an Adabas and Natural estate. Following the carve up of Software AG, the Adabas and Natural business (with Com-plete alongside) has operated as a standalone unit under Silver Lake ownership since early 2025, while other Software AG lines moved elsewhere. On Software AG mainframe paper Com-plete carries the product code COM.
Com-plete is licensed under Software AG's mainframe model, enforced by a license file installed on each machine that runs it. It is commonly priced against capacity in a MIPS or MSU tier rather than billed on the IBM rolling four hour average, and because it travels with Adabas and Natural it is frequently folded into a wider Adabas and Natural agreement. That bundling is the defining commercial fact: the Com-plete number is rarely negotiated in isolation.
| Element | How Com-plete is treated |
|---|---|
| Charge model | License plus annual maintenance, license file enforced |
| Metric | Mainframe capacity tier (MIPS or MSU band) |
| Product code | COM on Software AG mainframe paper |
| Typical packaging | Bundled with Adabas (ADA) and Natural (NAT) |
| Renewable element | Annual maintenance and support |
Directional summary. The capacity band and bundle structure depend on your Software AG order and contract terms.
Three drivers set the number. The licensed capacity band, because Com-plete is priced against the MIPS or MSU tier of the machines it runs on, so a refresh that lifts the band lifts the cost. The environment count, because production, test, development, and disaster recovery copies each consume entitlement and quietly multiply. And the bundle, because Com-plete sits beside Adabas and Natural and the combined maintenance stream compounds year over year as one line, which makes it easy to lose sight of what the TP monitor itself is costing. The strategic context matters too: a shrinking Natural estate should be paying less over time, not the same.
The recurring traps are structural. Running Com-plete on more capacity or more LPARs than the license file authorizes after a hardware refresh or a consolidation that was never rebaselined. Environment counts that exceed entitlement, where a disaster recovery or test copy was stood up without a matching license. And bundle blur, where Com-plete, Adabas, and Natural entitlements run together and a single true up lands on all three at once. Software AG audits on legacy mainframe contracts commonly probe exactly these gaps, and the older the paper the wider the gap between what it says and what the estate actually looks like today.
The structural lever is the capacity basis: rebaseline the licensed band against the LPARs Com-plete actually runs on today, and reconcile every environment against entitlement. The commercial lever is unbundling: separate the Com-plete line from Adabas and Natural so each can be benchmarked rather than renewed as one opaque number. The contract levers are a cap on the annual maintenance uplift and aligning the renewal term with the wider estate decision. Where a modernization off Natural and Com-plete is credible, naming that path is leverage on the whole Software AG renewal even when the migration is not imminent. This is the buyer side work we do on Adabas and Natural audit defense.
Com-plete is Software AG's z/OS transaction processing monitor, an alternative to CICS that combines a TP monitor with an application development environment. It runs Natural and other online applications and connects to Adabas through a link routine, so it usually sits inside an Adabas and Natural estate rather than standing alone. Its product code on Software AG mainframe paper is COM.
Com-plete is licensed under Software AG's mainframe model, enforced by a license file keyed to the machine, and is commonly priced against capacity in a MIPS or MSU tier rather than on the IBM rolling four hour average. Because it travels with Adabas and Natural, it is frequently bundled into a wider Adabas and Natural agreement, so its cost and its renewal terms are usually negotiated as part of that estate.
The common traps are running Com-plete on more capacity or more LPARs than the license file authorizes after a refresh or consolidation, environment counts (test, development, disaster recovery) that exceed entitlement, and bundle ambiguity where Com-plete, Adabas, and Natural entitlements blur together and a true up lands on all three at once. Software AG audits on legacy mainframe contracts commonly probe exactly these gaps.
Rebaseline the licensed capacity against the LPARs Com-plete actually runs on, separate the Com-plete line from Adabas and Natural so each can be benchmarked, cap the annual maintenance uplift, and tie the renewal term to the wider estate decision. Where a modernization or migration off Natural is credible, naming it is leverage on the whole Software AG renewal even when the move is not imminent.
Publisher hub: Software AG mainframe licensing. Related products: Natural licensing and EntireX licensing. Related metric: MSU explained. Put it to work: Adabas and Natural audit defense.