Billing in Air-Gapped Environments

Describes how billing is enabled in an air-gapped environment.

In an air-gapped environment, manual steps are needed to support billing and activation for a consumption-based fabric. This section describes how to activate an air-gapped fabric and keep the fabric operational.

Using maprcli Commands in an Air-Gapped environment

Some tasks for keeping an air-gapped fabric operational require you to use maprcli commands. This is because certain operations are not currently available in the Data Fabric UI. The maprcli commands you need are provided on this page.

To run maprcli commands, use an ssh connection to any node in the fabric.

Understanding the Activation Code and Billing Cycle

When you place an order for the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric and specify an air-gapped environment, HPE provides you with an activation code. The activation code allows you to register the product and sign usage records for one billing cycle. The billing cycle is one month with a 15-day grace period.

The activation code has two important dates:
  • Start Date – The first day of the one-month billing cycle.
  • End Date – The end of the month-long billing cycle and the start of the grace period. This date is usually 30 days after the Start Date.
You can view these dates by using the Data Fabric UI:
  1. Sign in to the Data Fabric UI, and switch to the Fabric manager view.
  2. Click Fabric administration.
  3. Locate the Activation card. The Activation code section of the card displays the start date, end date, and current month charges.

Once the activation code is applied, the code is valid (and the fabric is operational) until the End Date. After the End Date, a short grace period is applied to allow you to perform the steps to maintain activation.

Steps for Maintaining Activation

For an air-gapped environment, the fabric administrator must perform the following steps to keep the fabric activated:
Step Task When
1. Add an activation key. Installation time
2. Register the fabric. Installation time
3. Collect usage records. Monthly
4. Send a usage record file to HPE. Monthly
5. Pay the monthly HPE invoice. Monthly
6. Renew your activation to keep the fabric operational. Monthly

1. Add an Activation Key

Regardless of your fabric's operational mode, you must obtain a license and add the activation key from the license by using the Data Fabric UI. See Adding an Activation Key.

2. Register a New Air-Gapped Fabric

For a new air-gapped fabric, you must register the fabric by selecting the operational mode and uploading the activation code provided by HPE Support when you ordered the product. See Registering a Fabric.

After registration, the fabric is usable for a month with a 15-day grace period. The fabric continues to be usable as long as you continue to pay your monthly bill and reapply new activation keys.

3. Collect Usage Records

On or near the first day of each month, the fabric administer should collect usage records for the previous month. The following maprcli command collects your usage records in a file named usage_file.txt:
maprcli cluster getbillingusage -fileName usage_file.txt -clearText true

Licensing for the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric is consumption based, meaning that you are charged based on actual usage. Usage is measured in storage-hour units.

For both connected and air-gapped Data Fabrics, the container location database (CLDB) collects usage metrics. The CLDB analyzes the logical data size of all volumes in the fabric and records the average consumption for each hour at the end of the hour. Even before the fabric is activated and billing is enabled, you can view the recorded metrics by using the following maprcli command:
maprcli cluster getmeteringusage -from <date-time> -till <date-time> -cleartext true
For example:
$ maprcli cluster getmeteringusage -from 2021-01-01,00:00 -till 2023-05-13,00:00 -clearText true 
userdata  metadata  total  epoch          timestamp                     
1 Mb      0 Mb      1 Mb   1683716400000  Wed May 10 11:00:00 UTC 2023  
1 Mb      0 Mb      1 Mb   1683720000000  Wed May 10 12:00:00 UTC 2023  
1 Mb      0 Mb      1 Mb   1683723600000  Wed May 10 13:00:00 UTC 2023  
1 Mb      0 Mb      1 Mb   1683727200000  Wed May 10 14:00:00 UTC 2023  
1 Mb      0 Mb      1 Mb   1683730800000  Wed May 10 15:00:00 UTC 2023

4. Send the Usage Record File to HPE

To share your usage record file and obtain a new activation code (every 30 days), complete the following steps:
  1. Open a support case at https://support.hpe.com using the account you have on the HPE Support Center customer portal, and include the following information:
    • Fabric ID (cluster ID)
    • Current activation code
    • Usage record file
  2. When HPE Support updates the ticket, go to your customer portal to get the new activation key.

5. Pay Your Monthly Invoice

Each month you must pay the HPE invoice before the 15-day grace period ends. Otherwise, the fabric can be disabled, as described in Restoring a Disabled Fabric.

6. Renew Your Activation

As long as you continue to provide usage records and pay your monthly invoice within the billing grace period, HPE will continue to provide an activation code that allows you to renew your activation.

After obtaining the new activation code from the customer portal, use the following maprcli command to renew your activation:
maprcli cluster startup set -activationkey <path-to-file>
For example:
maprcli cluster startup set -activationkey /tmp/Renew_key_mycluster.text -is_file true -json

Log Information

To view log information for service activation and billing, see the main CLDB log:
/opt/mapr/conf/cldb.log