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More about capacity-based licenses

Contributors netapp-manini
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You should be familiar with the charging and capacity usage for capacity-based licenses

Consumption models

Capacity-based licensing packages are available with the following consumption models:

  • BYOL: Bring your own license (BYOL). A license purchased from NetApp that can be used to deploy Cloud Volumes ONTAP in any cloud provider.

    Note that the Optimized package is not available with BYOL.

  • PAYGO: A pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) subscription is an hourly subscription from your cloud provider's marketplace.

  • Annual: An annual contract from your cloud provider's marketplace.

Note the following:

  • If you purchase a license from NetApp (BYOL), you also need to subscribe to the PAYGO offering from your cloud provider's marketplace.

    Your license is always charged first, but you'll be charged from the hourly rate in the marketplace in these cases:

    • If you exceed your licensed capacity

    • If the term of your license expires

  • If you have an annual contract from a marketplace, all Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems that you deploy are charged against that contract. You can't mix and match an annual marketplace contract with BYOL.

  • Only single node systems with BYOL are supported in China regions.

Changing packages

After deployment, you can change the package for a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system that uses capacity-based licensing. For example, if you deployed a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system with the Essentials package, you can change it to the Professional package if your business needs changed.

Learn how to change charging methods.

For information about converting node-based licenses to capacity-based, see

Pricing and supported configurations

For details about pricing, go to NetApp BlueXP website.

Capacity-based licensing packages are available with Cloud Volumes ONTAP 9.7 and later.

Storage VMs

  • There are no extra licensing costs for additional data-serving storage VMs (SVMs), but there is a 4 TiB minimum capacity charge per data-serving SVM.

  • Disaster recovery SVMs are charged according to the provisioned capacity.

HA pairs

For HA pairs, you're only charged for the provisioned capacity on a node. You aren't charged for data that is synchronously mirrored to the partner node.

FlexClone and FlexCache volumes

  • You won't be charged for the capacity used by FlexClone volumes.

  • Source and destination FlexCache volumes are considered primary data and charged according to the provisioned space.

Capacity limit

With this licensing model, each individual Cloud Volumes ONTAP system supports up to 2 PiB of capacity through disks and tiering to object storage.

There is no maximum capacity limitation when it comes to the license itself.

Max number of systems

With capacity-based licensing, the maximum number of Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems is limited to 20 per NetApp account. A system is a Cloud Volumes ONTAP HA pair, a Cloud Volumes ONTAP single node system, or any additional storage VMs that you create. The default storage VM does not count against the limit. This limit applies to all licensing models.

For example, let's say you have three working environments:

  • A single node Cloud Volumes ONTAP system with one storage VM (this is the default storage VM that's created when you deploy Cloud Volumes ONTAP)

    This working environment counts as one system.

  • A single node Cloud Volumes ONTAP system with two storage VMs (the default storage VM, plus one additional storage VM that you created)

    This working environment counts as two systems: one for the single node system and one for the additional storage VM.

  • A Cloud Volumes ONTAP HA pair with three storage VMs (the default storage VM, plus two additional storage VMs that you created)

    This working environment counts as three systems: one for the HA pair and two for the additional storage VMs.

That's six systems in total. You would then have room for an additional 14 systems in your account.

If you have a large deployment that requires more then 20 systems, contact your account rep or sales team.

Learn more about NetApp accounts.

Notes about charging

The following details can help you understand how charging works with capacity-based licensing.

Minimum charge

There is a 4 TiB minimum charge for each data-serving storage VM that has least one primary (read-write) volume. If the sum of the primary volumes is less than 4 TiB, then BlueXP applies the 4 TiB minimum charge to that storage VM.

If you haven't provisioned any volumes yet, then the minimum charge doesn't apply.

For the Essentials package, the 4 TiB minimum capacity charge doesn't apply to storage VMs that contain secondary (data protection) volumes only. For example, if you have a storage VM with 1 TiB of secondary data, then you're charged just for that 1 TiB of data. With all other non-Essentials package types (Optimized and Professional), the minimum capacity charging of 4 TiB applies regardless of the volume type.

Overages

If you exceed your BYOL capacity or if your license expires, you'll be charged for overages at the hourly rate based on your marketplace subscription.

Essentials package

With the Essentials package, you're billed by the deployment type (HA or single node) and the volume type (primary or secondary). Pricing from high to low is in the following order: Essentials Primary HA, Essentials Primary Single Node, Essentials Secondary HA, and Essentials Secondary Single Node. Alternately, when you purchase a marketplace contract or accept a private offer, capacity charges are the same for any deployment or volume type.

Licensing is based entirely on the volume type created within Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems:

  • Essentials Single Node: Read/write volumes created on a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system using one ONTAP node only.

  • Essentials HA: Read/write volumes using two ONTAP nodes that can fail over to each other for non-disruptive data access.

  • Essentials Secondary Single Node: Data Protection (DP) type volumes (typically SnapMirror or SnapVault destination volumes that are read-only) created on a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system using one ONTAP node only.

    Note If a read-only/DP volume becomes a primary volume, BlueXP considers it as primary data and the charging costs are calculated based on the time the volume was in read/write mode. When the volume is again made read-only/DP, BlueXP considers it as secondary data again and charges accordingly using the best matching license in the digital wallet.

  • Essentials Secondary HA: Data Protection (DP) type volumes (typically SnapMirror or SnapVault destination volumes that are read-only) created on a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system using two ONTAP nodes that can fail over to each other for non-disruptive data access.

Note these points:

  • Minimum charge: There is a 4 TiB minimum charge for each data-serving storage VM that has at least one primary (read-write) volume. For the Essentials package, this minimum charge doesn't apply to storage VMs with only secondary (data protection) volumes.

  • Overages: If the licensed capacity is exceeded, overages are charged at marketplace rates, with a preference for using available capacity from other licenses first.

  • FlexClone and FlexCache Volumes: FlexClone volumes are not charged. Source and destination FlexCache volumes are considered primary data and are charged according to the provisioned space.

  • HA pairs charging: For HA pairs, only the provisioned capacity on a node is charged. Data synchronously mirrored to the partner node is not charged.

BYOL

If you purchased an Essentials license from NetApp (BYOL) and you exceed the licensed capacity for that deployment and volume type, the BlueXP digital wallet charges overages against a higher priced Essentials license (if you have one and there is available capacity). This happens because we first use the available capacity that you've already purchased as prepaid capacity before charging against the marketplace. If there is no available capacity with your BYOL license, the exceeded capacity will be charged at marketplace on-demand hourly rates (PAYGO) and will add costs to your monthly bill.

Here's an example. Let's say you have the following licenses for the Essentials package:

  • A 500 TiB Essentials Secondary HA license that has 500 TiB of committed capacity

  • A 500 TiB Essentials Single Node license that only has 100 TiB of committed capacity

Another 50 TiB is provisioned on an HA pair with secondary volumes. Instead of charging that 50 TiB to PAYGO, the BlueXP digital wallet charges the 50 TiB overage against the Essentials Single Node license. That license is priced higher than Essentials Secondary HA, but it's making use of a license you have already purchased, and it will not add costs to your monthly bill.

In the BlueXP digital wallet, that 50 TiB will be shown as charged against the Essentials Single Node license.

Here's another example. Let's say you have the following licenses for the Essentials package:

  • A 500 TiB Essentials Secondary HA license that has 500 TiB of committed capacity

  • A 500 TiB Essentials Single Node license that only has 100 TiB of committed capacity

Another 100 TiB is provisioned on an HA pair with primary volumes. The license you purchased doesn't have Essentials Primary HA committed capacity. The Essentials Primary HA license is priced higher than both the Essentials Primary Single Node and Essentials Secondary HA licenses.

In this example, the BlueXP digital wallet charges overages at the marketplace rate for the additional 100 TiB. The overage charges will appear on your monthly bill.

Marketplace contracts or private offers

If you purchased an Essentials license as part of a marketplace contract or a private offer, the BYOL logic does not apply, and you must have the exact license type for the usage. License type includes volume type (primary or secondary) and the deployment type (HA or single node).

For example, let's say you deploy a Cloud Volumes ONTAP instance with the Essentials license. You then provision read-write volumes (primary single node) and read-only (secondary single node) volumes. Your marketplace contract or private offer must include capacity for Essentials Single Node and Essentials Secondary Single Node to cover the provisioned capacity. Any provisioned capacity that isn't part of your marketplace contract or private offer will be charged at the on-demand hourly rates (PAYGO) and will add costs to your monthly bill.