Term Licensing

Describes term licensing for HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software.

Term licensing is a capacity-based licensing model that can be purchased for one, three, or five years. Term licenses are based on vCPU and GPU capacity, with the option to procure vCPU and GPU licenses separately.

A term license provides the applications and frameworks that run in an HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software cluster with a specific amount of vCPU and GPU resources. The system manages and accounts for services separately, ensuring that license capacity is only consumed by applications and frameworks.

Because a term license is strictly for capacity, it does not impact which applications and frameworks run. Users can run the applications and frameworks packaged with HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software or third-party applications and frameworks.

An administrator can install HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software on any size cluster and apply a term license after activation. Every application and framework that runs consumes resources (vCPU or GPU) which are deducted from the license. If usage exceeds the license capacity, the system audits the event and raises alerts to notify users. Any applications or frameworks submitted remain in a pending state until capacity is made available, either by purchasing additional licensing capacity or freeing up unused resources held by other applications and frameworks. Any in progress applications and frameworks continue to run if they secured sufficient resources to complete; otherwise, they stop running and sit in a pending state until capacity is made available.

Adding Capacity

You can add capacity either by purchasing additional licensing capacity or freeing up unused resources held by other applications and frameworks.

You can purchase additional licensing capacity through the MY HPE SOFTWARE CENTER customer portal and then complete the following steps to upload the license to Unified Analytics:
  1. Sign in to the Unified Analytics UI.
  2. In the left navigation panel, select Administration > Settings.
  3. On the Settings page, select the Activation Key tab and then click Upload Activation Key.

Comparing vCPU and GPU Licenses

The following table describes vCPU and GPU licensing:
License Description
vCPU
  • A unit of CPU (physical, virtual, or hyperthreaded) as enumerated by HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software.
  • The vCPU licenses are counted toward cores on HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software worker nodes.
  • Cores on the HPE Ezmeral Coordinator and HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software master nodes are not counted toward the license capacity.
GPU
  • A term license counts against physical GPU devices.
  • A GPU refers to the whole GPU device. MIG partitions do not count toward GPU licenses. A license applies to the whole GPU device.
  • The number of GPU licenses required is proportional to the number of GPU devices on a GPU card.
  • GPU licenses are required to activate GPU-based applications and frameworks; however, GPU licenses also require HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software with vCPU as a prerequisite.

Restrictions and Limitations

Term licenses have the following restrictions and limitations:
  • A term license applies to a single HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software cluster. You can add additional vCPU and GPU term licenses to expand cluster capacity, but you cannot apply the license across multiple HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software clusters.
  • Each term license is tied to an HPE Ezmeral Coordinator. Mixed consumption and term licenses are not allowed on HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software clusters that are managed by the same HPE Ezmeral Coordinator.
  • If you are using a Not-For-Resale (NFR) license, you must delete the NFR license before you apply a production license.
  • You must have a valid vCPU license before you can apply a GPU license.
  • You must apply an HPE Machine Learning Development Environment (MLDE) license before you run workloads on your cluster. The MLDE term license is distinct and must be procured separately from the HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software term license. For more MLDE licensing information, visit HPE Machine Learning Development Environment Software or contact your HPE account team.

License Capacity Aggregation and Reinforcement

Term licenses adhere to the following capacity aggregation and reinforcement rules:
  • Total licensed capacity (vCPU, GPU) is aggregated across all valid vCPU and GPU licenses applied to the cluster. For example, if you apply two vCPU licenses, each with 100 vCPU capacity, the total license capacity is 200 vCPUs. If one license expires, the total capacity becomes 100 vCPUs.
  • GPU is counted by physical GPU devices in a cluster. From the command line, you can see the GPU count exposed by NVIDIA and actual physical GPU count on a node. See Licensing.
  • The vCPU capacity on GPU worker nodes counts toward the licensed vCPU capacity.
  • GPU applications and frameworks only run when there is a valid GPU license; otherwise, the GPU applications and frameworks sit idle in a pending state.
  • To comply with contract terms, you must apply additional licenses when license capacity has been exceeded. The HPE Ezmeral Unified Analytics Software UI displays an alert if total worker-node capacity exceeds the license capacity.