I have a question to ask you to help me with something. I am an IBM i Consultant, and my management is working on optimizing IBM i license costs. We have many IBM i software products installed on our production and test machines. Now, they are asking me to provide a list of the licensed software that has not been in use for the past several days.

I don't see any command in IBM i to check the utilization of licensed software-whether someone is using these products or not. If no one is using them, we could remove the software from the machine and reclaim the license fees from IBM. Do you have any idea how to gather a list of unused software on IBM i?

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Nadeem Ahmed Farooqui
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Dear Nadeem

I cannot see how your management can optimize the SW cost. Whatever IBM i Licensed Program Products you did not pay for but they were installed, you did not have their license keys and therefore cannot run them anyway,  Whatever you paid for but never use them, you cannot ask for the money back.   Moreover, starting some 2-3 years ago for new Power Systems with IBM i, IBM no longer charges its Licensed Programs individually. It now uses SW Subscription approach and you get ALL the SWs regardless of whether you want some of them or not.  

Anyway, WRKLICINF command shows Usage information (you may need to press F11 to see it).  If you see zero value in those Usage columns (I remember there are 2 columns but I can remember wrong), it gives you the answer.   

My Google search also reveals a free tool you can also use to display such information (I have no idea what additional details you will see apart from what are shown in WRKLICINF).  QMGTOOLS provides License Management menu as described in this Technote: QMGTOOLS: License Management Menu at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/qmgtools-license-management-menu.  Look here on how to obtain and install it: How to obtain and Install QMGTOOLS and keep it current at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/mustgather-how-obtain-and-install-qmgtools-and-keep-it-current.              

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Satid S
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Original Message:
Sent: Fri March 27, 2026 08:20 AM
From: Nadeem Ahmed Farooqui
Subject: IBMi Software utilization

I have a question to ask you to help me with something. I am an IBM i Consultant, and my management is working on optimizing IBM i license costs. We have many IBM i software products installed on our production and test machines. Now, they are asking me to provide a list of the licensed software that has not been in use for the past several days.

I don't see any command in IBM i to check the utilization of licensed software-whether someone is using these products or not. If no one is using them, we could remove the software from the machine and reclaim the license fees from IBM. Do you have any idea how to gather a list of unused software on IBM i?

------------------------------
Nadeem Ahmed Farooqui
------------------------------

I have a question to ask you to help me with something. I am an IBM i Consultant, and my management is working on optimizing IBM i license costs. We have many IBM i software products installed on our production and test machines. Now, they are asking me to provide a list of the licensed software that has not been in use for the past several days.

I don't see any command in IBM i to check the utilization of licensed software-whether someone is using these products or not. If no one is using them, we could remove the software from the machine and reclaim the license fees from IBM. Do you have any idea how to gather a list of unused software on IBM i?

Satid brings up some good points with

• Software bundling
• The usage information from WRKLICINF or USAGE_COUNT from https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.6.0?topic=services-license-info-view 

Additional auditing of use would include looking either in DSPSFWRSC, F11 or at the following https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.6.0?topic=services-software-product-info-view and turning on auditing on the libraries involved.

I have a question to ask you to help me with something. I am an IBM i Consultant, and my management is working on optimizing IBM i license costs. We have many IBM i software products installed on our production and test machines. Now, they are asking me to provide a list of the licensed software that has not been in use for the past several days.

I don't see any command in IBM i to check the utilization of licensed software-whether someone is using these products or not. If no one is using them, we could remove the software from the machine and reclaim the license fees from IBM. Do you have any idea how to gather a list of unused software on IBM i?