An Introduction to Software Licenses in clustered Data ONTAP 8.1.x.

[mrinal]

Let’s say you purchase a 4 node clustered Data ONTAP system with CIFS.  To enable this cluster you get a Cluster Base license key with a 4 node count issued against a unique Cluster Serial Number (1-80-xxxxxx), and you get a 4 node CIFS license key that also contains the Cluster Serial Number (so it can’t be used in other clusters).  For add-on software purchases (e.g., add SnapMirror), you need to provide the Cluster Serial Number with your order and a new license key for 4 nodes of SnapMirror (or whatever feature you ordered) will be issued against that 1-80-xxxxxx serial number. 

NOTE: If you try to add a permanent license key to a cluster with a different cluster serial number, ONTAP 8.1 will throw an error right away and will not allow it.

For evaluations, send a request to your NetApp representative and they will provide evaluation (temporary) license keys for whatever features you need.  The eval keys they provide last up to 1 year and work for up to 8 nodes. The keys have a fixed expiration date and can only be installed once (unlike ONTAP 8.1 7-mode where you can install a temp key up to 3 times for 90 days each time).

There are two types of evaluations: new cluster evals, and cluster feature evals within an existing cluster. For new cluster evals, CMET will provide a Cluster Base license key that enables a cluster of up to 8 nodes to be created (with no expiration date); CMET will also issue eval license keys for features (e.g., CIFS, FlexClone, etc.) that enable use for up to one (1) year for a cluster of up to 8 nodes.  If you have an existing cluster and want to evaluate a particular ONTAP feature, CMET will issue an eval license key that will enable the feature for up to one year within your existing cluster.

NOTE: V-Series evaluations are handled by the V-Series hardware, and do not use cluster evaluation license keys.  Please refer to V-Series documentation for further details.

Features that can be licensed for clustered Data ONTAP 8.1.x:

Feature                          Description

---------------                      -----------

Base                              Base License w/cluster size limit (# of nodes)

Mirror                             Mirror License

CIFS                              CIFS License

SnapRestore                  SnapRestore License

FlexClone                      FlexClone License

NFS                              NFS License          

SnapMirror_DP              SnapMirror Data Protection License

iSCSI                            iSCSI License

FCP                              FCP License

SnapManager_Suite       SnapManager Suite License

SPA                              SPA License

[Rawat_Sunil]

As per my attached excel sheet needs to verify what all licence are active and what are deactive.

Other than this as a best practice what are the licence which we should procure of better enhansmant.

or pls share the list of all license used by NetApp along with their advantage and disadvantages.

Regards,

Sunil RAwat

+91-9953212357

[mrinal]

Hi Sunil,

Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, the excel sheet you are referring to did not make it into the comments.

This article was originally written for Data ONTAP 8.0 Cluster-Mode. With Clustered Data ONTAP 8.3 we have new commands to check the status of licenses on the cluster.

The command below can be used to check the status of licenses on the cluster

cluster1::> system license status show

The command below can be used to check the licenses are available on the cluster

cluster1::> system license show

To your question about licenses that are recommended for a cluster, the answer depends on the workloads that are rolled out on your cluster. Your local NetApp technical team can assist you in this matter.