All the GigaVUE V Series Nodes connected to GigaVUE-FM periodically report statistics on the amount of traffic that flows through the V Series Nodes. The statistics provide information on the actual data volume that flows through the V Series Nodes. All licensed applications, when running on the node, generate usage statistics.
Licensing for Cloud Suite is volume-based. In the Volume-Based Licensing (VBL) scheme, a license entitles specific applications on your V Series Nodes to use a specified amount of total data volume over the term of the license. The distribution of the license to individual nodes becomes irrelevant for Gigamon’s accounting purpose. GigaVUE-FM tracks the total amount of data processed by the various licensed applications and provides visibility on the actual amount of data, each licensed application is using on each node, and tracks the overuse, if any.
Volume-based licenses are available as monthly subscription licenses with a service period of 1 month. Service period is the period of time for which the total usage or overage is tracked. There is a grace period for each license that is encoded in the license file. The license effectively provides data allowance for this additional time after the official end time of the license.
For purchasing licenses with the Volume-Based License (VBL) option, contact our Sales. Refer to Contact Sales.
Base Bundles
In volume-based licensing scheme, licenses are offered as bundles. The following three base bundle types are available:
- CoreVUE
- NetVUE
- SecureVUEPlus
The bundles are available as SKUs1. The number in the SKU indicates the total volume allowance of the SKU for that base bundle. For example, VBL-250T-BN-CORE has a daily volume allowance of 250 terabytes for CoreVUE bundle.
Bundle Replacement Policy
Refer to the following notes:
- You can always upgrade to a higher bundle but you cannot move to a lower version.
- You cannot have two different base bundles at the same time however, you can have multiple base bundles of the same type.
- Once upgraded to a higher bundle, the existing lower bundles will be automatically deactivated.
Add-on Packages
GigaVUE-FM allows you to add additional packages called add-on packages to the base bundles. These add-on packages allow you to add additional applications to your base bundles. Add-on packages have their own start/end date and volume specifications.
Rules for add-on packages:
- Add-on packages can only to be added when there is an active base bundle available in GigaVUE-FM.
- The base bundle limits the total volume usage of the add-on package.
- If your add-on package has volume allowance less than the base bundle, then your add-on package can only handle volume allocated for add-on package.
- When the life term of an add-on package extends beyond the base bundle, then when the base bundle expires, the volume allowance of the add-on package will be reduced to zero until a new base bundle is added.
For more information about SKUs refer to the respective Data Sheets as follows:
How GigaVUE-FM Tracks Volume-Based License Usage
GigaVUE-FM tracks the license usage for each V series node as follows:
- When you create and deploy a monitoring session, GigaVUE-FM allows you to use only those applications that are licensed at that point (applicable only for ACTIVE licenses, licenses in grace period are not included).
- When a license goes into grace period, you will be notified with an audit log.
- When a license finally expires (and has not been renewed yet), you will be notified by an audit log. Monitoring sessions using the corresponding license will not be undeployed.
For releases prior to 6.4:
- The monitoring sessions using the corresponding license will be undeployed (but not deleted from the database).
- When a license is later renewed or newly imported, any undeployed monitoring sessions are redeployed.
