① Services · Cost optimization
Mainframe software commonly consumes 30 to 50 percent of the mainframe budget, and most of it is priced off peaks, baselines, and bundles you can change. We find the savings, then capture them in the contract.
The invoice grows without new workload, new users, or new hardware. That is by design.
Mainframe software pricing is engineered to drift upward. IBM Monthly License Charge bills typically follow the peak rolling four hour average, so one bad batch window in one month sets the price for everything behind it. Publisher agreements ratchet on capacity growth and rarely ratchet back down. Suites renew as bundles where two products carry real use and the rest is shelfware with a maintenance stream. And every hardware refresh quietly resets the capacity assumptions underneath the software paper.
None of this is misconduct. It is simply what happens when one side of the table models the estate continuously and the other side looks at it once per renewal cycle. The correction is the same in every engagement: measure the estate independently, fix the consumption mechanics, then make the contract reflect what you actually run.
The technical levers are well established: peak management and soft capping against the R4HA, workload scheduling, zIIP offload for eligible work, sub-capacity correctness, and pricing model fit, including whether IBM Tailored Fit Pricing helps or hurts your consumption profile. What separates outcomes is whether those savings are captured commercially. A reduced peak that never reaches the renewal table is a gift to next year's baseline.
Every product, every contract, MIPS or MSU per product, term expiry per agreement, across all seven publishers. Most estates discover entitlement overlap and double paid maintenance in this step alone.
SCRT and R4HA data validated independently against contracted capacity. We identify which peaks set your price, which LPARs drive them, and where reported consumption diverges from what the contract actually charges for.
Peak shaving and soft capping, workload scheduling, zIIP offload, sub-capacity qualification, pricing model fit including Tailored Fit Pricing entry or exit, and portfolio rationalization. Each lever is modeled in dollars against your own consumption history, not vendor assumptions.
Savings become contract terms: reduced baselines, terminated shelfware, renegotiated bundles, and metric transitions executed at the renewal where they price best. This is where technical work turns into budget.
Caps on escalators, consumption protections, and a governance rhythm that keeps the estate measured quarterly, so the drift never restarts unnoticed.
Across 500+ engagements, the typical renewal reduction is 20 to 35 percent.
With $180M+ in mainframe spend negotiated, we know where the room is in each publisher's pricing before the first meeting. Vendor account teams recalibrate when the buyer side arrives with reconciled SCRT data, a modeled walk away, and benchmark context. The conversation stops being about the uplift letter and starts being about what the estate actually consumes.
Cost optimization pairs naturally with renewal advisory when a major date is approaching, with contract review when the paper itself is the problem, and with MSU optimization when consumption mechanics are the dominant cost driver. For publisher specific patterns, start with the IBM hub or your renewal publisher's hub.
Across 500+ engagements we typically see 20 to 35 percent reduction on renewal spend. Consumption side savings vary with the estate; peak management, zIIP offload, and shelfware recovery each contribute, and the combination usually beats any single lever.
No. Most savings come from consumption management, contract structure, and shelfware recovery, none of which touch the workload. Migration is one lever among many, and usually the slowest and riskiest one.
Contracts and amendments per publisher, entitlement records, SCRT reports, and consumption history per LPAR. If some of it is missing, assembling it is the first deliverable.
MSU optimization is the consumption discipline: peaks, capping, scheduling, offload. Cost optimization adds contract structure, pricing model fit, portfolio rationalization, and the commercial capture of every technical saving at the table.
Twelve to eighteen months before a major renewal. Savings identified early become leverage; savings identified after signature wait years to be captured.