Table of Contents
What is License? #
The License Management page displays the licensing information such as the licensing mechanism, Cloud version, and license status.
On the ZStack Cloud main menu, click the profile icon and choose License Management. Then, the License Management page is displayed.
Licensing Mechanism #
Licensing in ZStack Cloud is supplied in different functionality packages as Base and Plus.
- Base License
- Provides the basic and essential features of the Cloud, which can meet the mainstream business requirements.
- Covered functionalities: Basic, Standard, Enterprise Trial, and Enterprise Prepaid. For more detailed information about these editions, see Edition Comparison.
- Plus License
- Provides add-on features or feature enhancements to meet the specific business requirements.
- Covered functionalities: VMware Management, Tenant Management, ARM64 Management, Backup Service, Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Service, Migration Service, Cryptography Security Compliance, Baremetal Management, Elastic Baremetal Management, Alibaba Cloud Hybrid Cloud Management, 5×8 (7×24) After-Sales Service, SR-IOV NIC Service, GPU Service, Billing Management, CloudFormation, Auto-Scaling Service, and Smart NIC Service.
- A Base license is required to install the Plus license.
The licensing mechanism is detailed as follows.
| Licensing Mechanism | Functionality Covered | Description |
|---|---|---|
| / | Community | Provides a simple, ease-of-use, and productized private cloud platform with diversified features for community users.Free of use.Number of compute nodes: not limited.Validity: perpetual.Applicable features: part of the Cloud.No after-sales technical support.Not applicable to product environments. Recommended for the purpose of technical research by community users. |
| Base License | Basic | Provides a lightweight, ease-of-use, and enterprise-level virtualization platform to meet customers’ needs for unified management of virtualized resources.Features are available after you purchase the Base license.The number of compute nodes that you can manage is calculated by the number of physical CPUs you purchased.Provides the basic and essential features of the Cloud within the licensed period.Add-on features are not available.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period.Applicable to product environments. |
| Standard | Provides a full set of computing, storage, and network virtualization features. This helps to meet the various and flexible business requirements.Features are available after you purchase the Base license.The number of compute nodes that you can manage is calculated by the number of physical CPUs you purchased.Provides a full set of computing virtualization, storage virtualization, and network virtualization features of the Cloud within the licensed period.Allows you to purchase and use add-on features within the licensed period as needed.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period.Applicable to product environments. | |
| Enterprise Trial | Provides a full set of computing, storage, and network virtualization features, and enhanced features such as GPU, CloudFormation, and auto-scaling. This helps to meet the various and flexible business requirements.1-year free trial.Provides one host for free.Provides the basic and essential features of the Cloud within the licensed period.Provides all add-on features within the licensed period.No after-sales technical support.Applicable to test environments. | |
| Enterprise Prepaid | Provides a full set of computing, storage, and network virtualization features, and enhanced features such as GPU, CloudFormation, and auto-scaling. This helps to meet the various and flexible business requirements.Features are available after you purchase the Base license.The number of compute nodes that you can manage is calculated by the number of physical CPUs you purchased.Provides the basic and essential features of the Cloud within the licensed period.Allows you to purchase and use add-on features within the licensed period as needed.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period.Applicable to product environments.Supports Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 and virtual TPM.Provides perpetual licenses.Provides portable licenses to facilitate flexible re-deployment to different servers if required.Provides stackable licenses such that two copies of license can fulfill the license requirement for a server with two processors, four copies of license can fulfill the license requirement for a server with four processors, and so on.Provides at least three-year 7*24 support service including software update and upgrade service for the Server Virtualization and Cloud Management Software.Supports continuous optimization on virtual infrastructure, including:provides recommendation to optimize performance, capacity, and configuration.provides customizable dashboard and report to show predicted resource needs.provides built-in tools for forecasting resource utilization. | |
| Plus License | VMware Management | Manages all the features of vCenter and provides an independent CPU license for VMware compute nodes.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.If the independent license is not issued or the licensed quota exceeds, the KVM-licensed CPUs will be used.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. |
| Tenant Management | Provides the full functionalities of Tenant Management, such as project management, organizational structure, users, permissions, and Cloud operations, during the licensed period.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| ARM64 Management | Provides a specified number of ARM hosts within the licensed period, and provides stable support for ARM64 servers.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Backup Service | Backs up VM data to backup storages online in various scenarios, such as local backup, remote backup, and hybrid cloud backup. This enhances the data reliability.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Continuous Data Protection (CDP) Service | Provides second-level and fine-grained continuous data protection for VM instances, ensuring that VM instances can quickly recover when a failure occurs.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Migration Service | Provides V2V migration to migrate VM system and data from other virtual environments to the current Cloud.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Baremetal Management | Provides a specified number of dedicated physical servers within the licensed period to ensure the high performance and stability of core applications.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Cryptography Security Compliance | Provides applications with cloud security capabilities based on commercial cryptographies, meeting the requirements of commercial cryptography application security assessments.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Elastic Baremetal Management | Provides the license for managing specified number of flexible physical servers during the licensed period, improving the ease of use and flexibility in addition to ensuring the high performance and stability of physical servers.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Alibaba Cloud Hybrid Cloud Management | Provides all features of Alibaba Cloud Hybrid Cloud Management, realizing the interconnection between the control plane and the data plane.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| 5×8 (7×24) After-Sales Service | Provides 5×8 or 7×24 official after-sales technical support within the specified period.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.The Base license is required to install the Plus license. | |
| SR-IOV NIC Service | Allows you to generate VF NICs from physical NICs based on the SR-IOV specification and allocate these VF NICs to VM instances. This provides VM instances strong I/O performance comparable to that of physical NICs.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.Provided in the Enterprise Base license by default.A Standard Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| GPU Service | Allows you to passthrough a physical GPU (pGPU) to VM instances or divide a pGPU into multiple virtual GPUs (vGPUs) and distribute the vGPUs to VM instances. This empowers VM instances with strong computing capabilities of physical GPUs.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.Provided in the Enterprise Base license by default.A Standard Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Billing Management | Provides billing methods like that of the public cloud, uses pricing lists to manage billing of resources of various unit prices, and offers billing services to the admin and tenants based on the pricing lists.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.Provided in the Enterprise Base license by default.A Standard Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| CloudFormation | Uses stack templates to batch deploy and configure resources and manage the lifecycle of the resources. In addition, offers designers that allow efficient orchestration of cloud resources.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.Provided in the Enterprise Base license by default.A Standard Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Auto-Scaling Service | Allows automatic scale-in or scale-out of VM instances based on the load balancing result of application workloads, thereby improving resource utilization, lowering maintenance costs, and securing stable business operations.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.Provided in the Enterprise Base license by default.A Standard Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. | |
| Smart NIC Service | Allows you to use smart NICs to free more compute power of physical CPUs and improve network performance. In addition, allows you to divide a smart NIC into multiple vDPA NICs and distribute the vDPA NICs to VM instances, thereby empowering the VM instances with high I/O performance like that of smart NICs.Features are available after you purchase the Plus license.Provided in the Enterprise Base license by default.A Standard Base license is required to install the Plus license.Provides official after-sales technical support within the specified period. |
Note:
- For more details, contact us by sending emails to sales@zstack.io.
- To obtain a trial, or to purchase or upgrade your ZStack Cloud license, send your key ID or request key with your requirements to sales@zstack.io. We will contact you as soon as possible.
Licensing Method #
ZStack Cloud supports two licensing methods: USB key and request key.
- Licensing by USB Key
- You can obtain the authorization by inserting only one USB key into the management node.
- If you are using a dual-MN environment, insert only one USB key.
- The Plus licenses authorized by an USB Key cannot be deleted.
- Licensing by Request Key
- You can obtain the authorization by uploading the license file to the management node.
- You can upload both the Base license and Plus license at the same time by using a tar.gz package.
- If you are using a dual-MN environment, we recommend that you upload the license file on the management node where the virtual IP address is located.
Install a License #
The admin can install a license by using a USB key or a request key. These two methods are detailed in the following topics.
Install a License by Using a USB Key #
This topic focuses on the method of getting a license by using a USB key, including installing a license by using a USB key, renewing a license by using a USB key, and viewing the status of a USB key.
Install a License by Using a USB Key #
To install a license by using a USB key, the admin can follow these steps:
- Insert the USB key into the management node.
- On the main menu of ZStack Cloud, choose Personal Center > License Management. Then, the License Management page is displayed.
- On the License Management page, click the Refresh button to the left of Upload License.Figure 1. Refresh License
- Then, you can see the whole licensing information.Figure 2. Whole Licensing Information
Note:
- If you have got a license by using a request key, you can view Plus License of both the request key and USB key after inserting the USB key. If the Plus License is the same, the latest uploaded one will be taken as a reference.
- If you get a license by using the USB key, every time you enter the License Management interface of the Cloud, there will be about two seconds of information reading, and the relevant information of the USB key will appear after two seconds.
- If you are using a dual-MN environment, note that:
- You can obtain the authorization by inserting only one USB key into the management node.
- If the node with the USB key inserted is faulty, we recommend that you remove the USB key and insert it into another healthy node to ensure the business continuity.
- If you update from a single management node environment to a dual-MN environment, you do not need to get the additional license.
Renew a License by Using a USB Key #
To resize or add licenses after uploading the license, the admin can follow these steps to renew the license by using a USB key:
- Insert the USB key into the management node.
- On the main menu of ZStack Cloud, choose Personal Center > License Management. Then, the License Management page is displayed.
- On the License Management page, click the Copy button to the right of the Key ID.Figure 3. Copy Key ID
- Apply for a license by using the USB Key ID to get the licensing file.
- Go back to the License Management page, Click Upload License to upload the licensing file.Figure 4. Upload License
- Check whether the licensing information is correct.
Note:
- If you do not insert a USB key into the management node, you can not upload a license by using the USB key.
- If the USB key ID dose not match the applied license, you can not upload the license by using the USB key.
- If you apply a new license by using a USB key, you need to fill in previous all applied information and then add new Plus License information when the USB key does not match the request key.
View USB Key Status #
On the main menu of ZStack Cloud, choose Personal Center > License Management. Then, the License Management page is displayed. You can view the current status of the USB key of the Cloud.
USB Key Status #
USB key has the following statuses.
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Ready | The USB key is Ready when there is only one USB key inserted into the management node and it works properly. |
| Missing | After unplugging the USB key, the USB key is Missing.Note: When unplugging the USB key, the Cloud will check whether the current license is expired.If it is expired, there will be no buffer license after unplugging the USB Key. It keeps the status of Expired.If it is not expired,a 30-day buffer license is generated based on the current license of the USB key when you unplug the USB key at the first time.the last time it was unplugged will be detected when you do not unplug the USB key for the first time:If the period between two times is 60 days or more, the buffer license is renewed.If the period is less than 60 days, the expiration time of the previous buffer license is retained.After unplugging the USB key and inserting a new USB key, the licensing information of the new USB key will be displayed and the buffer license of the old USB key will be invalidated. |
| Abnormal | For a dual-MN environment, you might face a possibility of USB key failure if you:Insert one USB key into each of the two management nodes.Insert one USB key into one management node, and insert multiple USB keys into the other management node.Note: The USB key in an abnormal state does not affect the license. |
| Fault | For a dual-MN environment, you may face a possibility of USB key failure if you:Insert multiple USB keys into one management node, and insert no USB key into the other management node.Insert multiple USB keys into every management node.For a single management node environment, if you insert multiple USB keys into this management node, the USB key status will be Faulty.Note: When the USB key status is Faulty, you can not use the license after the buffer license is expired. |
Install a License by Using a Request Key #
This topic focuses on the method of getting a license by using a request key, including installing a license by using a request key and renewing a license by using a request key.
Install a License on the UI #
To install a license by using a request key, the admin can follow these steps:
- On the main menu of ZStack Cloud, choose Personal Center > License Management. Then, the License Management page is displayed.
- On the License Management page, click Upload License in the upper right corner. On the displayed Upload License window, upload the obtained license.
Note:
- You can upload both the Base license and Plus license at the same time by using a tar.gz package or a .txt file.
- If you are using a dual-MN environment, we recommend that you download the request key and upload the license file on the management node where the virtual IP address is located. Then, the licensing information on both nodes can be updated.
- Only the admin has the permission to load or delete licenses. Note that the Base license cannot be deleted.
Install a License by Using Command Line Tool #
- Import the license by using a command line tool after getting the new license.
[root@localhost ~]# zstack-ctl install_license -f zstack-license.tar.gz - Refresh the license.Reload the license by using the following commands:
[root@localhost ~]# zstack-cli ZStack command line tool Type "help" for more information Type Tab key for auto-completion Type "quit" or "exit" or Ctrl-d to exit >>>LogInByAccount accountName=admin password=password { "inventory": { "accountUuid": "36c27e8ff05c4780bf6d2fa65700f22e", "createDate": "May 25, 2016 8:12:54 PM", "expiredDate": "May 25, 2016 10:12:54 PM", "userUuid": "36c27e8ff05c4780bf6d2fa65700f22e", "uuid": "d505bde1bcce46cb9c79774440654f42" }, "success": true } >>>ReloadLicense
Renew a License by Using a Request Key #
To resize or add licenses after uploading the license, the admin can follow these steps to renew a license by using a request key:
- On the main menu of ZStack Cloud, choose Personal Center > License Management. Then, the License Management page is displayed.
- On the License Management page, click the Download button next to Request Key.Figure 2. Download Request Key
- Apply for a license by using a request key to get the licensing file.
- Go back to the License Management page, upload the licensing file.
- Check whether the licensing information is correct.
Manage a License #
On the main menu of ZStack Cloud, choose Personal Center > License Management. Then, the License Management page is displayed.
The following table lists the actions that you can perform on a license.
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Upload License | Upload a license.Note:If you installed a license by using a USB key, you can upload both the Base license and Plus license at the same time by using a .txt file.If you installed a license by using a request key, you can upload both the Base license and Plus license at the same time by using a tar.gz package.If you are using a dual-MN environment, we recommend that you download the request key and upload the license on the management node where the virtual IP is located. Then, the licensing information on both nodes can be updated.You can click the refresh button in the upper right corner of the License Management page to reload the license.Only the admin has the permission to load or delete licenses. Note that the Base license cannot be deleted. |
| Copy Key ID | Copy the key ID required to generate a license. You can update the license by using a key ID. |
| Download Request Key | Download the request key required to generate a license. You can update the license by using a request key. |
| Delete Plus License | Delete a Plus license you added to the Cloud.Note: The Plus licenses obtained by using a USB key cannot be deleted. |
License Status #
A license has the following statuses.
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Valid | The Base license is in the valid status. |
| Expired | The Base license or a Plus license expired. If a Plus license expires, the corresponding features are unavailable. |
License Exception Reminder #
If an exception occurs to your license, the Cloud will remind you accordingly. The details are listed as follows.
| Exception | Details |
|---|---|
| License to Expire | When the remaining license period is less than 15 days, a banner prompt will appear after you log in to the Cloud.Note:You will receive a reminder when the remaining period of the 5×8 (7×24) after-sales service is less than 30 days. Please contact us for authorization update as soon as possible to obtain a complete official after-sales technical support service.You can click Check in the banner prompt to go to the License Management page. In order not to affect your use of the Cloud, we recommend that you contact us as soon as possible for authorization update. |
| License Expired | When the Base license expired, you will be redirected to the License Management page after login. In order not to affect your use of the Cloud, we recommend that you contact us as soon as possible for authorization update.Note:If your Base license expired, the business on the Cloud can be still running properly. However, do not perform any operations, such as reconnecting your host, backup storage, or primary storage, so as not to affect the business continuity.If your Plus license expired, all the features provided by the Plus license will be unavailable. For example, if your Tenant Management Plus license expired, the project login page will be locked.If your Base license expired, but the Plus license is still within the authorization period, you can view the relevant resources related to the Plus license, but do not operate on these resources. For example, if your Tenant Prepaid Base license expired, but the Tenant Management Plus license is still within the authorization period, you can log in to the Cloud from the project login portal, but you cannot operate on related resources. |
| Licensed Quota Exceeds | When you update your license, you may find that the used resources exceed the authorized quota. In this case, most features of the Cloud become unavailable. To ensure your business continuity, we recommend that you update your license to expand the capacity. The limitations and operations that you can perform are as follows:You can log in to the Cloud and obtain, refresh, and view the status of resource.You can reduce resource usage by for example, deleting a host, a vCenter, a cluster, or a VM instance, changing the state of a host, and expunging a VM instance.You can manage your license, such as downloading the request key, uploading a license, and deleting a license.You can perform no operations other than the preceding operations.Note:Resource authorization by license can be delivered by using the following three methods: CPU sockets, hosts, and VM instances. If the resources usage exceeds the quota authorized by using either of the three methods, some features of the Cloud become unavailable.If you power off the management node, the management node cannot be started. You can only login to the management node console and update the license by using CLI. For more information, see Install the Licensing by Using Command Line Tool. |
Licensing Record #
On the main menu of ZStack Cloud, choose Personal Center > License Management > Licensing Record. Then, the Licensing Record page is displayed.
The admin can view the licensing records of the Cloud on the UI, including the upload time, license type, authorized items, authorization method, authorized quota, state, time when the license was issued, and time when the license expires.
