IBM Spectrum Scale license designation

According to the IBM Spectrum Scale™ Licensing Agreement, each server in the cluster must be designated as possessing an IBM Spectrum Scale Client license, an IBM Spectrum Scale File Placement Optimizer (FPO) license, or an IBM Spectrum Scale Server license. Starting with release 4.2.2, you can also use capacity-based licensing which is available only with IBM Spectrum Scale Data Management Edition.

There are three basic storage cluster models: storage area network (SAN), network shared disk (NSD), and shared nothing. IBM Spectrum Scale supports all three of them. For SAN and NSD clusters, a number of Server licenses are required in addition to Client licenses if the customer is planning to connect Client nodes to the IBM Spectrum Scale server using the IBM Spectrum Scale high-speed native driver (GPFS™ daemon). For shared nothing clusters of storage rich servers, FPO licenses are required on each of those servers.

The type of license that is associated with any one server depends on the functional roles that the server has been designated to perform.

IBM Spectrum Scale Client license: The IBM Spectrum Scale Client license permits exchange of data between servers that locally mount the same IBM Spectrum Scale file system. No other export of the data is permitted.
IBM Spectrum Scale Server license: The IBM Spectrum Scale Server license permits the licensed server to perform management functions such as cluster configuration manager, quorum node, manager node, and Network Shared Disk (NSD) server. In addition, the IBM Spectrum Scale Server license permits the licensed server to share IBM Spectrum Scale data directly through any application, service protocol or method such as Network File System (NFS), Server Message Block (SMB), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Object Protocol (OpenStack Swift, Amazon S3 API). Therefore, protocol nodes also require an IBM Spectrum Scale Server license.
IBM Spectrum Scale FPO license: The IBM Spectrum Scale FPO license permits the licensed server to perform NSD server functions for sharing IBM Spectrum Scale data with other server that have an IBM Spectrum Scale FPO or an IBM Spectrum Scale Server license.

The full text of the Licensing Agreement is provided with the installation media and can be found at the IBM® Software license agreements website.

Use the guidance in Figure 1 to decide which IBM Spectrum Scale license to buy for your requirements.

Figure 1. Guidance on which license to buy

These licenses are all valid for use in IBM Spectrum Scale Standard Edition and IBM Spectrum Scale Advanced Edition. For more information, see IBM Spectrum Scale product editions. With IBM Spectrum Scale Data Management Edition, you must use capacity-based licensing. For more information, see Capacity-based licensing.

You can view the number and type of licenses currently in effect for the cluster using the mmlslicense command.
If needed, you can change the type of license assigned to a node using the mmchlicense command.

For more information, see mmchlicense command and mmlslicense command.

The following are IBM Spectrum Scale licensing considerations including considerations for using IBM Spectrum Scale with other offerings.

AFM-based Async Disaster Recovery (AFM DR) with multicluster: When using AFM-based Async Disaster Recovery (AFM DR) in a multicluster environment, both the home and the cache cluster require the IBM Spectrum Scale Advanced Edition or IBM Spectrum Scale Data Management Edition.
Encryption: The encryption function available in IBM Spectrum Scale Advanced Edition or IBM Spectrum Scale Data Management Edition requires a separate IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager (ISKLM) license.
Encryption with multicluster: When using the IBM Spectrum Scale encryption function in a multicluster environment, each server in an IBM Spectrum Scale cluster requiring access to another cluster's encrypted file system must be licensed with IBM Spectrum Scale Advanced Edition (Client, Server, or FPO as appropriate) or IBM Spectrum Scale Data Management Edition.
Hadoop access: The IBM Spectrum Scale Hadoop connector can be used with all license types (Client, Server, FPO) and all Editions (Standard, Advanced, and Data Management). There is no additional license requirement for Hadoop access. A Hadoop node using the connector needs no IBM Spectrum Scale license. The Hadoop node can connect to a node in the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster, which is licensed as Server because it is exporting data, and access the file system directly using the Hadoop connector.
IBM Spectrum Scale with IBM Spectrum Protect™: When using IBM Spectrum Scale with IBM Spectrum Protect for backup and restore, each IBM Spectrum Scale node performing data movement requires an IBM Spectrum Protect license.
IBM Spectrum Scale with IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management: When using IBM Spectrum Scale with IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management for migration and recall, each IBM Spectrum Scale node performing data movement requires an IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management license.
IBM Spectrum Scale with IBM Spectrum Archive™ Enterprise Edition (EE): In addition to an IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition (EE) license, a server in the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster which is being used for IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition (EE) requires IBM Spectrum Scale to be installed with the correct license (ordered separately). The IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition (EE) server requires an IBM Spectrum Scale Server license, if the IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition (EE) server is also being used for any of the functions requiring an IBM Spectrum Scale Server license such as NSD server, quorum, management, etc. Otherwise, the IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition (EE) server can be licensed with an IBM Spectrum Scale Client license. The IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition (EE) server's function of moving data from the file system to a tape drive is not considered as a type of data export that requires an IBM Spectrum Scale Server license.
Virtualization licensing: In an IBM Spectrum Scale environment containing VMs or LPARs, licenses are required for the sockets available to the IBM Spectrum Scale VMs or LPARs on a physical server. The number of licenses required is the number of cores available to IBM Spectrum Scale. For more information, see Virtualization questions in IBM Spectrum Scale FAQ on IBM Knowledge Center.