Commvault Complete License Guide
Commvault Complete License Guide
Commvault Complete License Guide
February 2020
Table of Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Explanation of document ..................................................................................................................................................... 5
Document layout........................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Socket .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Mixing of metrics......................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Multi-instancing........................................................................................................................................................................................... 13
Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Mail and Cloud ..................................................................................... 14
Licensing transition guide for existing capacity, solution set, and agents & options................ 20
Overview ............................................................................................................................................................................ 20
Maintenance renewal.................................................................................................................................................................................. 22
CIFN conversions for existing capacity and large data footprint customers ................................................................................................ 24
Explanation of document
The Commvault Licensing Program Guide is designed to explain core licensing concepts for Commvault products, to be
used by Commvault customers and partners. This guide will act as an advisory reference for understanding how
Commvault measures and meters its end-customer licensing requirements.
Document layout
The guide is divided into key sections, aligning to Commvault’s product portfolio. After the initial, general license terms,
which apply to all products, there is a deeper view into each Commvault product line to cover any specific details
associated with the product line in question.
Note that any exceptions to the general license terms would be outlined in the software-specific terms section.
TRANSITIONS/CONVERSIONS
INCUBATION PRODUCTS
Software overview
Software portfolio
Commvault offers products and solutions that fall into several different product lines: Commvault Complete™ Backup &
Recovery, Commvault Orchestrate™, Commvault HyperScale™, and Commvault Activate™. Each product line carries
with it a specific set of licensing rules and terms, which align it to the functions and customer value it provides.
Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery
The primary product in Commvault’s portfolio is Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery. This product line consists of
all the software required to conduct backup and recovery activities, with additional features included for archive,
operational reporting, and hardware snapshot management, commonly known as Commvault IntelliSnap® technology.
Commvault HyperScale™ Technology can seamlessly expand to meet customers demanding performance and capacity
requirements to protect, access and use all their data, anywhere and anytime.
Commvault Orchestrate™
Customers who wish to automate and orchestrate copy provisioning of multi-server applications can use the intuitive
consoles provided in the Commvault Orchestrate™ line of products. Additionally, users who wish to gain access to
Commvault-developed integration points with third-party management platforms can license or subscribe to those features
as needed. The Orchestration Development Kits and APIs are also available for users wishing to customize their own
orchestration and integration actions.
Commvault Activate™
Commvault Activate™ products provide the tools needed to gain better insight into the data you have. Whether it is simple
case management and compliance requirements, or a more encompassing regulatory requirement, Commvault Activate™
tools can give you the insight you require into the data you have.
Subscription licensing
Subscription models are offered in 1 through 3-year commitment increments.
Commvault approaches subscriptions by providing backup and archive rights for a fixed period, with easy renewal options
to extend the functionality in multi-year agreements. While payment terms may vary based on region and other factors, all
Commvault subscriptions contain an end date at which time the software rights will expire. This subscription includes all
software rights as licensed, along with software support/maintenance.
When a Commvault license key expires, all access to the protected data remains in place for recovery purposes.
However, any new backup, archive, or replication jobs will not start until a renewed key is put into place.
When a subscription expires, customers have the option to renew (based on current license models and terms) as a new
subscription or purchase perpetually at that point. Support on each expired subscription CommCell® will be billable on a
per-incident basis, and no further upgrade/service pack rights will be conveyed after the subscription expiration.
Perpetual licensing
Commvault perpetual licensing options consist of a license purchase and maintenance associated with that perpetual
purchase. If a customer chooses not to renew maintenance, use rights for the software will persist based on the current
version of the software that is available at the time of expiration. However, no new updates will be available, and customer
support costs would be incurred on a per-incident basis.
Utility licensing
Commvault additionally offers utility-based software licensing under the Service Provider license program. End-User
license programs are not eligible for utility-based pricing. Concepts and terms within this document do not directly apply to
the Service Provider program. Please review the Service Provider license program for more details on these offerings.
All Commvault part numbers carry a designation to indicate whether they are for resell/end-customer use or are part of the
service provider program.
For customers who require multiple CommServe® servers for technical reasons, and would like to aggregate all licensing
into a central pool, a licensing server may be employed, so long as the combination of all CommCell® licensing in
aggregate abides by mixing rules established for a single CommCell® (for example, socket and VM licensing may not be
mixed together in a licensing server).
Licensing definitions
In the following sections, certain general Commvault licensing terms are defined and applied against all other license
constructs in the guide, unless specifically noted.
Socket
In Commvault terms, this is any logical socket as identified by a supported hypervisor. Where socket licensing only
applies to designated virtual protection options, the definition is tied to how the underlying hypervisor reports its socket
consumption. In scenarios where sockets cannot be derived from the hypervisor layer, per-virtual machine/ operating
instance licensing must be used.
Operating instance
Any physical or virtual operating environment with a distinct server name or identity that has a Commvault intelligent Data
Agent (iDA) configured to capture data from it. This includes physical, cloud, or virtual machines that have active
Commvault agents installed within them, as well as virtual machines protected by the Commvault virtual server agent.
Ingested terabyte
Commvault counts terabyte consumption in two ways, depending on the technology used to capture the data. For
traditional backup, Commvault counts the application size of the latest full back up or synthetic full backup for each sub
client. If the agent has multiple backup sets, the backup set with the largest backup size is counted towards capacity.
For all archive-based operations (including OnePass 1), terabytes are measured as the last backup cycle of each OnePass
sub client, which includes the latest full or synthetic full, plus all incremental jobs that have run since the last full / synthetic
full. Additionally, all legal hold and object link jobs are also counted towards archive consumption in the manner outlined
here.
1OnePass: This is a Commvault-specific term that represents the concept of combining Data Protection and Archive into
a single agent that manages both workloads in a single scan of a given data set
Stored terabyte
For appliances, and certain other specific license scenarios, measurement of the amount of stored data under
management may be employed. This measure is made in base-2 and reflects the amount of disk consumed by
Commvault data stores. This number is calculated based on actual storage consumed, so it considers any compression
and/or deduplication technologies that Commvault is aware of being in use. Third-party deduplication appliances may not
be recognized, and instead would report raw, uncompressed data totals (if Commvault compression/deduplication is not
used).
Exception for customers prior to release of Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery
For customers with a mix of capacity- based licensing and socket- or VM-based licensing for virtual protection, this mixed
model will be grandfathered under the Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery program, and maintain traditional
mixed license counting mechanisms (for more details, see the transition section later in this document). If a customer
wishes to move purely into a single metric (terabyte or VM/socket/operating instance), a custom conversion would be
executed in conjunction with a new licensing purchase. Minimum purchase requirements will be established based on the
number of licenses that are required to convert. Please contact [email protected] for further details.
Mixing guide
In cases where the software is not technically enforced against the licensing, the user is responsible to ensure compliance
based on the terms outlined in this document.
Enforcement mechanism Restrictions are enforced, Reporting will show Usage is unmonitored, and
typically at 110% of purchased totals and while mechanisms exist to
purchased total. consumed totals. Overages count the usage, they are
Progressive warnings lead will be highlighted in the not included in a standard
to restricted functionality License Summary Report. License Summary Report.
(30 days).
Key enablement All related features are Features are enabled, on Feature is enabled through
enabled, and a counter is an unlimited basis. keys, on a limited basis.
enabled to monitor usage.
Examples Virtual Backup (per VM) Mailbox Backup (per MBX) Search (by user)
1 Customers with more than 500TB will be guided to the capacity based Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery licensing in order
to ensure the most flexible license model for their needs. Customers over 500TB may not purchase VM, socket, or OI licensing without
special pre-approval by Commvault licensing.
2CVU stands for Commvault Value Unit
3Where one license protects 10 virtual machines
Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Virtual Environments
This ability generally aligns to Commvault’s technical support for the given virtual Docker*
platform, with some hypervisors only supported under VM licensing (as no Google Cloud Platform*
socket information can be obtained).
Huawei FusionCompute
An updated list of supported/recognized hypervisors may be found on
Microsoft Azure*
commvault.com on the Supported Technologies page.
Microsoft Azure Stack*
Figure 1 lists the currently supported platforms, and notates any restrictions,
relative to support of the per-socket license model. Microsoft Hyper-V
Socket and VM licensing may not coexist within a single CommCell®, as all VMware vCenter (Essentials or
measurement decisions are made at the CommCell® level in its entirety. In Higher)
order to have Sockets and Virtual Machine licensing in the same organization,
two separate CommCell® would need to be employed.
*Socket Licensing not
supported
In these scenarios, Commvault licensing will always count the operating instance (unique name) from which the backup or
archive job was executed. If no active backup jobs are executed from a named instance, the software on the physical
nodes may be configured into a non-licensed mode (also known as “restore-only” mode), and no licensing will be
consumed. Only the software deployed to protect the cluster resource will consume licensing.
Multi-instancing
For environments in which multiple cluster resources are deployed (manifesting as multiple operating instances, each with
unique server names), each cluster instance will require its own license.
Proxy-based backups
When considering backups of storage technologies that may only be protected via a proxy-based configuration (for
example, a NAS, or cloud storage), operating instance licensing must be used, and is counted based on the number of
entities that are configured for protection. Typically, this is an IP address for NAS, or a service account for a cloud
storage repository. In no scenario would virtual licensing be used, as the entity being protected is not a qualified virtual
machine, even if the proxy is residing inside a virtual machine.
Please note that for this exclusion to occur, a standard Media Agent or CommServe® deployment must occur, in which the
backup is configured as part of the component installation. If agents are separately deployed to execute the backup, they
will be treated as normal instances and consume licensing as normal.
Similarly, to Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery per TB licensing, backup and recovery for endpoint and mailbox
users are both excluded from this package and are only licensed on their specific associated user metrics.
Licenses will be counted based on a mapping of user accounts in the associated LDAP directory. Accounts that are
marked as resources within LDAP will not count towards the licensing total. Inactive accounts will also not be counted
against the license total.
Under consideration that mailbox data capture does not function on a traditional full/incremental methodology, all user
accounts will be measured against licensing until a mail account is marked as “inactive” within the agent configuration.
After that configuration occurs, that account’s mail will no longer be captured.
End user search functionality, as well as the Commvault Outlook Plug-ins for Content Store Mail are included with this
license offering.
Journal mailboxes will not count towards the overall mailbox count. However, it is important to note that compliance
search and case management functionality is not granted under Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for
Mailboxes and is delivered as an add-on through the Commvault Activate™ product line.
Database level backup rights, using a database-level agent are not conveyed under this license, but rather included with
the per-TB or per-instance based licensing models.
Note that server-class operating systems that are functioning as end-user desktops will not be counted as endpoints, and
as such, require full backup and recovery licensing, either per TB, or per operating instance.
Licenses can be released by de-provisioning a given user account in the administrative console. Please consult
Commvault online documentation (documentation.commvault.com) for detailed technical steps on releasing license
consumption.
Access to Commvault Edge file sharing technology is also granted in this package.
Mobile application rights are granted to end users through this license package and may be used on any device related to
the management of the associated desktop/laptop backups, as well as use of the Edge file sharing service.
Multiple users on a shared laptop/desktop/workstation will each be counted against the license totals individually as each
user is given unique access rights to their own data through the administrative console.
Commvault Platform Data April 28th, 2017 Per operating 15 Commvault HyperScale™
Protection Client instance Appliance (full)
Commvault Platform Data April 28th, 2017 Per user 2 Commvault HyperScale™
Protection User Appliance (full)
Commvault Data Platform October 1st, 2018 Per stored TB 25 Commvault HyperScale™
(active disk/cloud storage) Appliance (full)
Commvault HyperScale™ Software is an integrated package of software features built to deliver a seamless storage
management experience with resilient availability and high-performance compute features. The software may be acquired
as a bundle with supported hardware, or separately, to be combined with certified Commvault reference architecture.
Licensing for Commvault HyperScale™ Software is directly tied to the amount of useable storage made available to the
Commvault HyperScale™ media agents. Useable storage is calculated in base-2, and excludes any storage reserved
specifically for erasure coding (as this storage is not shown as useable to the software).
Due to the nature of Commvault HyperScale™ Software, in which all available storage is formatted to be used as the
storage pool, in no scenario can a useable storage pool be partially licensed. Any storage that should not be part of the
pool must not be made available to the Commvault HyperScale™ node(s).
Any Commvault HyperScale™ pool that is not fully licensed may be rendered to a read-only state, and not allow additional
data to be added until proper licensing is obtained.
Commvault HyperScale™ Appliances
Product Availability date License metric CVU total Prerequisites
The following table describes the licensing granted through the purchase of a given appliance model. Note that the three
primary license grants are for clients, platform storage, and HyperScale. HyperScale Licensing is matched directly to the
useable capacity within the appliance, and any additional platform storage granted is intended for use off-appliance (for
example, a secondary cloud storage target, or disk library in a separate location. Capacities are calculated as base-2 and
will typically be different than the raw hardware calculations that are base-10 as industry standard.
1105 5 4* 4 50
1348 32 29 29 300
1372 48 43 43 500
1396 64 58 58 700
13120 80 72 72 800
13144 96 87 87 900
1115 15 0* 0 0
1348 32 29 0 0
1372 48 43 0 0
1396 64 58 0 0
13120 80 72 0 0
13144 96 87 0 0
Commvault Orchestrate™ for July 9th, 2018 Per operating instance 1100 Commvault Complete™
Copy Data Management – 20 pack Backup & Recovery
Commvault Orchestrate™ for July 9th, 2018 Per CommCell® 4500 Commvault Complete™
Copy Data Management – Backup & Recovery
unlimited per CommCell®
Commvault Orchestrate™ for Copy Data Management is a set of tools for automating the provisioning and lifecycle
management of application/database copy data. Access to the orchestration console and related features/options are
restricted unless this license package is present in the CommCell®.
The product is measured by the number of source operating instances captured and prepared for orchestration through
the console. At any time, the count of consumed licenses may be reduced by releasing copy data templates from the
library.
While the number of source operating instances are counted, there are no restrictions on the number of provisioned
copies that can be created. These clones may be persistent and continuously updated using database live sync features
or provisioned on demand as needed.
Commvault Activate™ Full Suite – July 9th, 2018 Active directory 1500 Commvault Complete™
Per 500 users account Backup & Recovery
Commvault Activate™ - sensitive October 20th, Per user account 1 Commvault Complete™
data governance for mail/cloud 2019 analyzed Backup & Recovery
File storage optimization – delivers a core set of reporting that focuses on file metadata.
Sensitive data governance – Extends indexing and analytics into content and provides details on data that may contain
information that could be considered sensitive and may need further attention.
eDiscovery and search compliance - Uses Commvault’s extended content index and search capabilities in conjunction
with Case Management tools to create review sets and provide legal hold for data that may be subject to inspection.
In the case of file optimization, where there is no functionality to be used against mailboxes or cloud sources, there is no
per-user license.
License terms for Commvault Activate™ full suite
When the full suite license is employed, the measurement of this will be the number of Active Directory users in the
organization. This is reflective of all active users but will not count inactive or resource accounts.
Example: An organization wishing to look for and analyze their sensitive data footprint across a 100TB NAS and their
600 Employees e-mail accounts, the licensing requirement would be as follows:
• 100 units of sensitive data for files/VM
• 600 units of sensitive data for e-mail/cloud
Alternately, if the organization wishes to have the full suite of functionality, without limits on the amount of data that can be
analyzed, they could elect to license:
• 2 units of the full suite 500 user pack
For typical organizations, however, the full suite option will only be advantageous if two (or all three) of the individual
feature sets are required.
Overview
With the introduction of Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery in July of 2018, legacy licensing models used before
July 2018 will begin a phase-out program to streamline and improve overall customer experience with license
management. This document outlines the logic, rules, and operational procedures associated with the transition program.
Transitional principles
Commvault strives to make the licensing transition process as seamless as possible for the existing customer base. To
that end, all transitional logic is predicated on the concept that no customer should lose any functionality when moving
from the old licensing to the new licensing.
For customers wishing to maintain a perpetual license model, a direct conversion will be available, so long as a similar
license metric is maintained (TB to TB, or client to client). For customers wishing to change their model from client to TB,
or TB to client, such a conversion will require a shift to subscription licensing.
Conversion program mapping
Commvault capacity license agreement (DPE/DPA) Commvault Compete™ Backup & Recovery (per TB)
Commvault capacity license agreement (DAE/FAE) Commvault Select™ Backup & Recovery (per TB)
Commvault VM Backup and Recovery Solution Sets Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Virtual
Environments
Commvault File Backup and Recovery, NAS Backup and Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Physical
Recovery, Application Backup and Recovery Solution Environments
Sets
Commvault Endpoint Backup and Recovery Solution Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Endpoint
Sets Users
Commvault Email Backup & Recovery Solution Sets Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Mailbox
Users
Commvault Agents and Options licensing Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Virtual
Environments, Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery
for Physical Environments, Commvault Complete™ Backup
& Recovery for Endpoint Users, Commvault Complete™
Backup & Recovery for Mailbox Users
Commvault Platform license model Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Virtual
Environments, Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery
for Physical Environments, Commvault Complete™ Backup
& Recovery for Endpoint Users, Commvault Complete™
Backup & Recovery for Mailbox Users
Commvault Appliance licensing (non-HyperScale) Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Virtual
Environments, Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery
for Physical Environments
How to convert
Incremental purchase
In order to begin the process of a conversion, a customer must first purchase licensing under the Commvault Complete™
Backup & Recovery program, or associated add-ons as outlined in this guide (Commvault Orchestrate™, Commvault
Activate™, Commvault HyperScale™). Once a purchase of new licensing has been accepted and confirmed by
Commvault, a conversion can take place.
At the time of purchase, a license key will be delivered that grants rights for all previous licenses purchased by customer,
plus the incremental licensing purchased under the Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery program. Initially,
features will be provided that can be used against the newly licensed instances, or TB’s. Some features will be available
for use against older products licensed in the same construct (socket/VM/operating instance or per TB). However, in some
cases, not all retroactively applied features will be present without a fully converted key.
At any time, post-purchase, a customer may request to complete a full license conversion by emailing
[email protected] and supplying their CommCell® ID. This request may also be submitted by a Commvault sales
executive or channel partner with documented consent from the customer. Once the conversion has been calculated, a
confirmation statement will be delivered to the requestor, along with a new permanent license key that reflects the full
conversion.
Subscription purchase
At any time, a customer can elect to forfeit their perpetual rights to licensing under a given model and elect to subscribe
under a Commvault subscription license model. This will typically occur when a customer wishes to change their licensing
model (i.e. from TB-based licensing to client-based).
Forfeiture of licensing requires a signed release agreement between the user and Commvault in order to be finalized. In a
forfeiture, no refund of prepaid maintenance or software subscription will be made under any circumstance.
If a customer wishes to maintain their perpetual license rights and continue paying software maintenance on those
licenses, they may do so within a separate CommCell®, while using subscription licensing in a new CommCell®. However,
as noted, the customer may not fundamentally change the license metrics on the perpetual licensing in such a move.
Maintenance renewal
At the time of maintenance renewal, in limited cases, Commvault may elect to convert the legacy licensing footprint to the
new license model upon receipt of the maintenance renewal order.
However, Commvault would work with the customer to simplify their licensing to one metric or the other. If a customer
wishes to move purely into a single metric (terabyte or VM/socket/operating instance), a custom conversion would be
executed in conjunction with a new licensing purchase. Minimum purchase requirements will be established based on the
number of licenses that are required to convert. Please contact [email protected] for further details.
NAS/NDMP backups X
Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recover for Mailbox Users
(per TB)
Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Endpoint Users
Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Virtual Environments (per
for Virtual Environments (per socket) VM)
Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery (legacy mixed VM/socket and
(legacy mixed VM/socket and TB) TB), Commvault Complete™ Backup & Recovery (Per TB), or Commvault
Complete™ Backup & Recovery for Physical Environments
SW-2620-CVLT-INTSNAP SW-8020-CVLT-INTELLISNP
SW-2650A-CVLT-INTSNAP SW-8020-CVLT-INTSNAP
SW-2750A-CVLT-INTSNAP SW-8040A-CVLT-INTELLSNP
SW-A200A-CVLT-INTSNP SW-8040A-CVLT-INTELLSNP
SW-8040A-CVLT-INTSNAP
SW-8040A-CVLT-INTSNAP
For customers who require licensing beyond the listed grants, additional licensing may be required. Please consult your
partner or Commvault sales representative for further guidance.
License metric Per front Per front Per Per Per operating Per user Per user
end TB end TB 10 socket instance
Core infrastructure
components for data
management
(CommServe®, DR
CommServe®, media
agents)
Commvault data
management features
(encryption,
deduplication, WORM
support, data erase)
Core Data Traditional disk and
Infrastructure tape libraries
Cloud storage
connectors
Advanced tape drive
management and
media reporting (vault
tracker enterprise)
On-premises metrics
reporting server
Per
Per front Per front Per Per operating
License metric 10 Per user Per user
end TB end TB socket instance
VM
Continuous data
replicator
Virtual machine
level replication/
failover
IntelliSnap® (LiveSync)
Snapshot Hardware
Management snapshot
& Replication integration
(Commvault
IntelliSnap®
technology)
Hardware-based
snap replication
control
Endpoint
management
features (asset
location tracking,
self- service,
remote data
erase)
Laptop and
desktop data
User-Specific
protection
Workloads
End user data
storage &
sharing
Mailbox granular
protection and
archive
w/OnePass (i.e.
Exchange,
Gmail, Notes)
Protection of
cloud application
data (i.e. Office
365, Google
Drive,
Salesforce.com)
Commvault
Commvault Commvault Commvault Orchestrate™
Features Commvault
Hyperscale™ Activate™ – Activate™ - Activate™ - active copy
Software file storage compliance search management for
& eDiscovery - sensitive data applications
optimization governance
Per
Per front end Per terabyte/user terabyte/user
License metric Provisioned TB Per operating instance
TB (based on source) (based on
source)
Scale-out storage
repository and
management tools
Object Store, CIFS/NFS
Direct Access
Analyze Commvault
backup data
Metadata indexing
Remediation tools:
proactive data cleanup,
set retention for file, task
request/remediation
workflow
Automated application
copy management tools