License types
Introduction
This topic explains the various Portworx license types, and how you can use them.
If you have already set up your cluster using any of the paid or free Portworx licenses, you can switch to pay-as-you-go (PAYG) billing by acquiring a PAYG account key from the Pure Storage support team. For more information about switching to PAYG, refer to the pay-as-you-go topic.
Portworx products support the following license types:
| License type | Description |
|---|---|
| Portworx Essentials | Free Portworx license with limited functionality, suitable to run small production or proof-of-concept workloads. |
| Portworx CSI for FA/FB | Free Portworx license with a limited feature set. This license provides essential container storage capabilities for Portworx on FlashArray and FlashBlade. This license allows only Direct Access volumes up to the cluster limit. |
| Trial | Same as the Portworx Enterprise license. It is a default license installed with 30 days trial period for full Portworx Enterprise functionality |
| Portworx Enterprise VM | Enterprise license, suitable for Virtual Machine (VM) installs on-prem and in cloud |
| Portworx Enterprise Metal | Enterprise license, suitable for installs on any bare metal hardware |
Depending on the type of container you are installing, a different license will be automatically activated. For example, the Portworx Enterprise automatically activates the Trial license (limited to 30 days), which you can upgrade to a Portworx Enterprise license at any time.
Licensed features
In the following table, you can see the overview of features that are controlled via licensing.
| License feature | Description | Portworx Essentials | Portworx CSI for FlashArray and FlashBlade | Portworx Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of nodes maximum | Defines the maximum number of nodes in a cluster | 5 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Number of volumes per cluster maximum | Defines max number of volumes on a single node | 200 | 100000 Direct Access volumes | 100000 |
| Volume capacity [TiB] maximum | Defines max size of a single volume | 1 TiB | 40 TiB | 40 TiB |
| Node disk capacity [TiB] maximum | Defines max storage capacity of a single node | 1 TiB | 256 TiB | 256 TiB |
| Node disk capacity extension | Defines is the storage capacity can be extended | no | no1 | yes |
| Number of snapshots per volume maximum | Number of volume snapshots allowed per single volume | 5 | no1 | 64 |
| Number of attached volumes per node maximum | Number of attached volumes on a single node | 30 | 128 | 256 |
| Storage aggregation | Defines if volumes may be aggregated across multiple nodes | no | no | yes |
| Shared volumes | Defines if volumes may be shared w/ other nodes | yes | no1 | yes |
| Volume sets | Defines if volumes may be scaled | yes | no1 | yes |
| BYOK data encryption | Bring your own key" for data encryption | Per cluster key | no1 | Per volume and per cluster |
| Limit BYOK encryption to cluster-wide secrets | Limits the use of data-encryption keys to only a cluster-wide secrets | limited | limited | unlimited |
| Resize volumes on demand | Defines if volumes can be resized | yes | yes | yes |
| Snapshot to object store [CloudSnap] | Defines if cloud-snapshots can be used (for example, volume snapshot to Amazon S3 service) | yes | no1 | yes |
| Number of CloudSnaps daily per volume maximum | Limits how many cloud-snapshots can customers do (per volume, in a day) | 1 | no1 | unlimited |
| Cluster-level migration [Kube-motion/Data Migration] | Defines if the Data Migration can be used, see Data Migration | no | no | yes |
| Disaster Recovery [PX-DR] | Enables synchronous and asynchronous DR features (requires 2.1 version or later, needs additional license) | no | no | (AddOn required) |
| Autopilot Capacity Management | Defines if Autopilot can be used | no | no | yes |
| OIDC Security | Defines if PX-Security can be used, see PX-Security on an existing cluster | no | no | yes |
| Bare-metal hosts | Software may be deployed on commodity hardware | yes | yes | yes |
| Virtual machine hosts | Software may be deployed on VMs (including Amazon EC2, OpenStack Nova) | yes | yes | yes |
Trial License
The trial license activates automatically when the Portworx Enterprise license is installed.
The trial license provides the full product functionality for 30 days.
DESCRIPTION ENABLEMENT ADDITIONAL INFO
Number of nodes maximum 1000
Number of volumes maximum 1024
Volume capacity [TB] maximum 40
Storage aggregation yes
Shared volumes yes
Volume sets yes
BYOK data encryption yes
Resize volumes on demand yes
Snapshot to object store yes
Bare-metal hosts yes
Virtual machine hosts yes
Product SKU Trial expires in 6 days, 20:40
Trial license expiration
After the trial period expires, you cannot create new volumes or volume snapshots. You can restore normal functionality by purchasing and installing a Portworx Enterprise license.
- Starting with Portworx version 3.1.0, Portworx volumes are not supported with the Portworx CSI for FlashArray and FlashBlade license, some related features are no longer applicable under this plan.↩