Bring your own SAP product license

The IBM Cloud® SAP-Certified infrastructure is "bring your own license" (BYOL) capable for your SAP products. You need to apply the corresponding license for your SAP products after installation. If you are new to SAP, start exploring under SAP All Products. You can also contact SAP Sales or SAP Support for details on how to obtain the required licenses.

Database licenses for SAP general information

It is recommended to check the license type of your Database Server for your SAP installation scenario onto IBM Cloud to avoid unsupported scenarios. Typically the license types are:

Full-use database license. Supports both SAP and non-SAP software, unrestricted usage of all functions
Runtime database license. Solely to support software licensed from SAP, restricted usage of functions required by the SAP Business Application. This usage can include databases from other vendors if those databases were purchases as OEM products through SAP.

SAP AnyDB - Bring your own IBM Db2 license

If you purchased your SAP and IBM Db2 (for Linux, UNIX, Windows also known as LUW) licenses as part of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) application-specific licensing (ASL) agreement, you can download and apply license files from the SAP Support Portal); click Download Software. For more information, see SAP Note 816773 - DB6: Installing the Application-Specific Db2 License from SAP.

However, if you purchased IBM Db2 from IBM or an IBM Business Partner, you must use the license files that are provided by your vendor instead.

SAP HANA licenses

SAP HANA licenses are handled by the SAP HANA Cockpit.

SAP NetWeaver and SAP Business Application licenses

Both the SAP NetWeaver application server license and the SAP Business Application license are handled by SAPGUI (or variation thereof).

Creating an SAP license key

The SAP license key, saplikey or SLICENSE, displays a "hardware key" based on the hardware ID.

Use the following steps to create your SAP license key.

Run the saplikey -get command on the server that you're using as the SAP message server. As an alternative to the saplikey command and if your SAP system is already installed, you can use the SLICENSE transaction to retrieve the HARDWARE KEY.
Use the HARDWARE KEY output value to generate a valid SAP software license from SAP Support. Select Request Keys and enter you SAP S-user ID.
Use the SAP system data to create a valid license key.
Use the SAP transaction SLICENSE or the saplikey command to install the license on your SAP system.

SAP license key with IBM Power Virtual Servers

This is a complementary offering from IBM Power Systems, with low latency access to IBM Cloud services

SAP changed the mechanism for licensing when an IBM Power Virtual Server is running on the IBM Cloud®. In the IBM Cloud, the product license is not dependent on the underlying hardware that's running the server. The license is associated with the virtual server.

The hardware key is no longer based on the hardware ID, but on the partition UUID of the logical partition (LPAR). The partition UUID is persisted by the platform across restarts, reconfigurations, OS reinstalls, and partition migrations, making it independent of the hardware that is running the virtual servers.

When you request an SAP software license, be sure to use the HARDWARE KEY that was generated with an SAP kernel that has the minimum level that is required for running on IBM Cloud. The minimum SAP Kernel patch level of the kernel is found in SAP Note 2879336. Otherwise, your SAP software license becomes invalid as soon as your virtual server is moved to different hardware in the IBM Cloud®.