Licenses are not cheap. Also for migration of licenses to a less powerful machine, Vision Solutions charges. In the recent infrastructure migration process, we used a POWER 8 machine with CBU option, that kept down license fees for both OS and MIMIX.

Pricing and licensing is complicated because it is based on how big the system is, and how it is configured.

Our implementation is with expensive enterprise level IBM iSeries systems, so the price is adequate to the scale, and importance of the system. And with their support and the application stability, it's worth every penny.

Not much room for negotiation, but you can try to get at the least first three years of maintenance included in initial cost.

It isn't a cheap product, but if you need a reliable HA solution and data protection is important to you, then MIMIX is your product, it worth every penny.

This topic is really complicated because now the product is CPU-core licensed. When we bought it, it was system based. So I would say that at first, you should start with a small environment, for example a non-production LPAR (or VM), and see if it is feasible for the expected purpose (data protection). The licensing model is related to production and backup LPAR CPU cores, same for maintenance, it should be under 18% of the initial license fee. But, you should take into consideration implementation services that are around $1700 to $1900 per day.

Negotiate hard.

It depends on which version of MIMIX is most suitable for your production systems, and according to the needs and expectations of the business.

If you can consolidate your systems into one, it will save you a lot of money in licensing.

Just tell them you're looking at a hardware-based DR solution and they should come back with a lower cost.