Forum Discussion

posie80's avatar
posie80
Level 4
15 years ago

Veritas Storage Foundation 5.1 licensing

Hi all!
I'm in the middle of procuring a few new servers, which will need Veritas Storage Foundation standard on them.

I've been getting outrageous quotes from the vendor and also some confusing cost tiering information. So I thought you experts might be able to help me clear some stuff up. Here are my questions :

1) I was told by the vendor that the current Veritas SF licenses are based on Server tiering and CPU/core tiering, and the server tiering is cheaper than the cpu one. However they are a bit vague on this and did not offer more info. Is this true? If so, is there any document anywhere outlining these tiers and the advantages/limitations? I am getting some T5440 with Sol10, with 4 and 8 cores.

2) I have 3 servers (all SUN V440)  with Veritas Storage Foundation 4.0 that I have retired recently. I wonder if its possible for me to re-use these licenses on the new servers, or somehow upgrade them? Is this possible (in light of the latest license tiering, etc).

3) While I acquire these new licenses, I requested for some evaluation ones because I would like to start setting the servers up already. I was told that starting from 5.1 onwards, Symantec doesnt provide eval licenses and instead, if I enter blank during license registration, it automatically will allow me to use it free for 60 days. Is this true? Also, once I get the actual license keys and register them, will they be any downtime (provided I do this within the 60 days period). I think not, but appreciate if you can confirm.


Thanks a lot in advance!

- Posie
business continuity
Documentation
Evaluating
Storage Foundation
  • Gaurav_S's avatar
    Gaurav_S
    15 years ago
    for 1,  have a look at

    https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/faqs-and-myths-storage-foundation-keys

    Hope this helps


    Gaurav
  • Gaurav_S's avatar
    Gaurav_S
    Moderator
    15 years ago

    I will need to look a bit for question 1.. however here are answers for 2 & 3

    2)  4.0 licenses will work with 5.1 as well.... you shouldn't have any issues there.... however if your 4.0 server also had old licenses (belonging to 3.x version) then there might be an issue, you need to contact symantec & get your licenses replaced with new ones.... easy way to identify is, old 3.x licenses were numeric however new licenses starting 4.0 were alpha-numeric.....

    3) yes, 5.1 provides built in eval license for 60 days..... & once you get your own license key, you can install it simply with "vxlicinst" command... this doesn't need any downtime..

    I will come back for que 1...



    Gaurav
  • Gaurav_S's avatar
    Gaurav_S
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    for 1,  have a look at

    https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/faqs-and-myths-storage-foundation-keys

    Hope this helps


    Gaurav
  • g_lee's avatar
    g_lee
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    Also note for 2) (reusing the 4.0 licenses) - although this may work (assuming you've covered the issues Gaurav mentioned), you may not have access to new features that were introduced after 4.0 (ie: the old licenses won't know how to unlock these features in the new product)

    This is also mentioned in the license keys article above, however thought it was worth highlighting since you asked about it specifically.
  • posie80's avatar
    posie80
    Level 4
    15 years ago
    Gaurav,
    As always your prompt feedback was spot on and very much appreciated!!
    I had a look at the document and understood much better. I checked my current 4.0 keys and they look alphanumerical, so I'm covered :) phew.

    G_lee, thanks for the mentioned of the possibility of new features not being unlocked by the old keys. That makes sense and I saw it mentioned in the article as well.

    I also read that its possible to upgrade your old keys to a newer version. I assume this would mean, the old keys would be regenerated. But this should be cheaper than buying a whole new license, right?

    Thanks all! You saved me so much time.

    - Posie