Power Global

There's no technical reason.  This is a purely marketing decision.

Primary OS indicator features are being withdrawn. Since you can't purchase these boxes new anymore, the primary indicator doesn't really apply.  Most clients will use VIO as the primary OS and virtualize.
AIX licenses can still be purchased (ask your IBM or BP about doing a "software-only server" configuration) and transferred to the Power9 server.  
SLES licenses don't have to be purchased from IBM, client can purchase from SUSE.
IBM i OS is not supported on the E950.

Is the system registered in ESS? If so, what entitlements does it show for this serial number?

to @Glen Corneau , yes you are right we cannot buy anymore this hardware, even using VIOS we can technically run AIX or Suse or any OS, but we cannot purchase the license so we cannot have a support for this "new" OS running on this frame , in our case it is Suse we want to add on some OLD frames.

@José Pina Coelho you are 100% right, but doing business everyday and delivering services for our customer is not a game, I can understand that HW upgrade is not anymore possible, but software ???? especially when you have a big existing environment. 

@Jean-Francois Noel I agree with you, I think customers should be able to buy software for any machine they own, or activate buy on demand CPU/RAM/features, regardless of being EOL.

The only criteria should be technical, and the decision to base their business on an unpatchable stack, should be theirs.

It's up to customers to escalate it through their sales reps, if enough customers are vocal enough (through the proper channels), then change (however unlikely) is possible, otherwise there won't be any change. 

I agree with the right to repair but my guess is IBM is concerned that selling you something might create some responsibility to support or maintain that thing and its requirements like a near EOL piece of hardware.

Now if you complaining that this was poorly communicated...

hello @Alexander Pettitt , yes communication, and even more, delay remaining to react was my first problem.

But HW maintenance on power middle or high-end system is not the problem, IBM is providing support and extended support for years. So I you have existing operating systems, VIOS and OS (AIX / Suse / ...) running on them , I you can buy ADDITIONAL OS (existing)licenses on some POWER, why you cannot buy NEW OS (not existing) on exactly same type of frame ? especially when you are in Power Enterprise Pool 2 where you have "flying Licenses"

I can buy new Suse licenses on some of my E950 already having Suse Licenses

I cannot buy new Suse Licenses on some of my E950 not having Suse Licenses

This is the current status
Will keep you updated.

Hi Jean-Francois.

I think you may have misinterpreted Glen Corneau's answer above.

As he says, the feature codes that have been withdrawn for the Power9 based servers are 'administrative' feature codes, including ones that tell IBM what the Primary Operating System is on the system, and others that specify the number of partitions of each running OS on the server. These allow the IBM team to understand how their systems are used (and therefore improve the user experience in the future). None of the feature codes actually order new OS licenses for the servers.

• IBM and Business Partners can still sell new AIX licenses for these systems.
• IBM i is not supported on the E950, so you still can't purchase any IBM i licenses or subscriptions for that model.
• The agreement IBM has with Linux vendors like SUSE and Red Hat is as an OEM. So the IBM team and Business Partners can only sell new subscriptions for SLES and RHEL with a new hardware purchase. For any additional purchases of subscriptions you would need to purchase them directly from SUSE / Red Hat (or a recognised reseller).

These statements apply whether or not you have any of those Operating System entitlements against the system already - so this can be 'new' entitlements or it can be 'extending' existing entitlements. This is the same for Power9 based servers as for Power8 based servers (and for older servers than that if you really want to).

If you are purchasing new entitlements and installing new environments it will be your responsibility to check the support statements to ensure that the version you want to run is / was supported on the particular hardware model. IBM only provide support and software maintenance for currently supported hardware and OS combinations, unless extended support is purchased for older releases.

Today I have a problem with a Power9 H922 that expire de support license and is not possible que download de firmware V950. Probably we have the same problem to acquire Suse/AIX licenses in the future if we need.

Sorry back from other priorities , 

thanks for your answers Andrew Laidlaw  and Andrew Laidlaw

But unfortunately no I did not misinterpreted : 

We are using Power9/P10 in our environment  , we have PowerEnterprisePool 2 for all power (2 pools for Ex50 and on for Ex80) 

To take benefits of PEP for licensing (mobility of licenses among all frames) we MUST purchase licenses to IBM (inclusding suse and rhel)

All licenses purchased to Suse are not elligible to PEP2

We must have at least one license attached to the system (for us it is suse it is a 2 socket license) 

As I discussed before , some of my E950 frames do not yet have Suse licenses because HW is withdrawn =|:o( but I can purchase additiobnal licenses for my other E950 which already have one Suse.

If you can please please give to me a contact to escalate to IBM for this Suse subject because I'm also searching how to redistribute (administratively speaking) my Suse Licenses between my frames in IBM books to be shared with Suse, because when opening a case to Suse they tell me my hardware si not under Suse Support. 

thanks a lot 

@Jean-Francois Noel

As I mentioned earlier, the agreement that IBM has with SUSE and Red Hat is as an OEM reseller - and so IBM or Business Partners can only resell SLES or RHEL subscriptions as part of a new hardware sale. No matter how old your system you cannot purchase new SLES subscriptions directly from IBM separate to a hardware purchase (if you bought an E1180 yesterday, they cannot sell you new SLES subscriptions for it today). So this is nothing to do with the fact the Power9 systems have moved to Extended Hardware Support.

You can still purchase new AIX licenses (and subscriptions) for Power9 based hardware from IBM or registered Business Partners. Even for systems that do not have existing AIX licenses against them.

You have just added in the details that you are running a Power Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity (Pools2.0) environment. You would be correct that in order to use metered capacity with SLES you would need to have the right types of SLES subscription and support in place on each server in the Pool you want to run SLES on. As you say, the documentation specifies the IBM part numbers for the required SLES subscriptions, which are the ones resold under the OEM agreement in place. However you can purchase the same subscription type and support level from SUSE or a SUSE Partner - I would recommend talking to a skilled SUSE Partner to ensure you are getting the right part numbers (SKUs) as SUSE have many more than are offered through the IBM OEM agreement.

It's also worth noting that you can still use other SLES subscriptions on servers that are part of a Pools2.0 environment. You would not get the flexibility of the Pools2.0 offering, for instance not being able to scale up your usage on a system beyond the base subscriptions and pay per minute for consumption. However SLES subscriptions are generally a lower cost than most other OS licenses, and as you say cover 2 sockets of compute each. In many cases it is easier to simply have enough subscriptions in place within your environment to cover the maximum usage - based on the SUSE counting rules of course. SLES subscriptions are no tied to a specific serial number - instead they are connected to a SUSE account. So they are flexible within your organisation to an extent - you still can't split a single subscription across multiple physical servers for instance.

Finally on your comment: "because when opening a case to Suse they tell me my hardware si not under Suse Support."
This seems very reasonable to me. SUSE will not provide support for any hardware - they will only provide support for the Operating System that they provide. If you need hardware support then you should contact IBM if you have an existing hardware maintenance contract. The SUSE team will work with IBM hardware support if it is not clear whether the cause of your problem is hardware or OS related, but you would need to raise support cases with each organisation.