IBM Knowledge Catalog service plans

The plan that you choose for IBM Knowledge Catalog affects the features and capabilities that you can use.

When you provision IBM Knowledge Catalog, you can choose between the Lite, Standard, or Enterprise Bundle plans.

You can provision only one IBM Knowledge Catalog instance per IBM Cloud account.

Available plans

As an IBM Cloud account owner or administrator, you can choose from these IBM Knowledge Catalog plans:

Lite
Try IBM Knowledge Catalog features for free before you buy the Standard or Enterprise Bundle plan.
Standard:
Pay for catalog assets and the compute usage for running IBM Knowledge Catalog processes and tools.
Enterprise Bundle:
Pay a discounted monthly fee for large amounts of catalog assets and compute usage. Import Knowledge Accelerators that contain curated glossaries with industry-specific vocabularies.

For pricing information, see the IBM Knowledge Catalog page in the services catalog.

Feature differences between IBM Knowledge Catalog plans

The Platform assets catalog is available without the IBM Knowledge Catalog service. However, with the IBM Knowledge Catalog service, you can include assets other than connections in the Platform assets catalog. The limits for assets other than connections in catalogs include those assets in the Platform assets catalog.

The following table shows limits and restrictions for features per plan. All other features are available without restriction in all plans.

Table 1. Feature differences between IBM Knowledge Catalog plans
Feature Lite Standard Enterprise Bundle
Platform assets catalog 1 1 1
Other catalogs 2 unlimited unlimited
Connection assets in catalogs unlimited unlimited unlimited
Other assets per catalog 50 pay per asset per month 100,000 per month + pay for more
Categories 10 10,000 10,000
Business terms 300 unlimited unlimited
Predefined Business Terms in the Knowledge Accelerator Sample Personal Data category
Service instances created after October 7, 2022

Service instances created after October 7, 2022
Reference data sets 20 (3000 rows per set) 5000 (3000 rows per set) 5000 (3000 rows per set)
Custom relationships for governance artifacts
Custom category roles 5 5 50
Administrative reports on assets, catalogs, projects, and governance artifacts
Knowledge Accelerators to import curated glossaries with industry-specific vocabularies
Asset activities to view the history of the events performed on the asset
Metadata enrichment with generative AI 10 jobs per month with a maximum of 10 assets per job 100 jobs per month with a maximum of 10 assets per job 500 jobs per month with a maximum of 10 assets per job
Compute usage per month 25 CUH pay per CUH used 2500 CUH + pay for more
Encrypt IBM Cloud Object Storage with your own key
HIPAA readiness ✓ (Dallas region only) ✓ (Dallas region only)
Back up of assets (for disaster recovery only)
Data lineage ✓ (Dallas region only) ✓ (Dallas region only) ✓ (Dallas region only)
Data lineage resource unit usage per month 3 data source definitions and 5000 tables 3 data source definitions and 15000 tables + pay for more 6 data source definitions and 30000 tables + pay for more

Billing

IBM Knowledge Catalog

Standard:
With the Standard plan, you pay monthly for the number of catalog assets and the compute usage consumed.

Compute usage is measured in capacity unit hours (CUH). You consume CUH when you profile data assets, or run IBM Knowledge Catalog tools and jobs.

You are charged for the highest number of assets that exist in your catalogs at any time during one calendar month. For example, if you add 10,000 assets to a catalog on 1 May and delete all of them on 2 May, you will still be billed for at least 10,000 assets. If then on 12 May you add new 12,000 assets, the highest number of assets is reset to 12,000, regardless how many assets are later deleted. The number of assets is reset to the actual current number of assets at the beginning of the following month.

Enterprise Bundle:
The Enterprise Bundle plan includes a set amount of monthly catalog assets and compute usage. You pay for more catalog assets and compute usage.
Keep your bill from constantly growing
Projects and Spaces are created and deleted far more frequently than catalogs are. Many times, a project is created, assets from a catalog are copied to the project and worked on, and new assets are added. Those assets are then copied back into a catalog. This way, the number of assets is inevitably growing over time. To keep your bill under control:
  • Delete unneeded assets, and then remove them from the trash as well. Assets that are removed from catalogs continue to be counted until you delete them from the trash. See Deleting assets from the trash.
  • Delete unneeded catalogs.
Keep in mind that, no matter how many assets you add or delete within one month, each calendar month represents a separate billing period.

IBM Manta Data Lineage

IBM Manta Data Lineage is an optional service and requires an IBM Knowledge Catalog service entitlement as a prerequisite.

Usage is measured in resource units (RU) where 1 resource unit equals 1 data source definition or 5,000 database tables. A data source definition (DSD) uniquely identifies a specific system, database, or application within the customer's environment that the customer wishes to scan. A table refers to an individual data table within the customer's source system that Manta Data Lineage scans.

A set amount of data source definitions and tables are available with each IBM Knowledge Catalog service plan. You can purchase additional RU as a 12-month subscription to expand the number of data source definitions or tables you can work with.

You are charged for the highest number of resource units existing in your lineage at any time during one calendar month. For example, if you scan 100 DSDs on 1 May and delete all of them on 2 May, you will still be billed for at least 100 DSDs. If then on 12 May you add new 120 DSDs, the highest number of DSDs is reset to 120, regardless how many DSDs are later deleted. The number of RUs is reset to the actual current number of assets at the beginning of the following month.

To keep your bill under control, delete unneeded data source definitions and tables from your lineage. For more information, see Deleting data lineage.

Learn more

Parent topic: IBM Knowledge Catalog