KEMP Metered Licensing (MLA) is a capacity based subscription that provides a flexible approach to licensing of LoadMaster application delivery resources. With MLA, the aggregate consumption across instances is the billing metric with no restriction on the number of LoadMaster instances deployed. With this approach, enterprises and service providers can subscribe to a MLA capacity tier and then have the flexibility to deploy instances to meet their departmental and customer application delivery requirements as needed.
- Flexibility - Meets the requirements dynamic business environments with no restrictions on number of instances or where the instances are deployed.
- Value - Avoids the licensing cost of deploying multiple overprovisioned instances and the lock-in associated with traditional 'permanent' licenses.
- Scalability - Delivers the ability to move up and down tiers as demands change and to deploy on-demand for short term projects.
How it Works
With metered licensing, the aggregate maximum throughput of LoadMaster instances is measured each calendar month and this value is used to determine the usage for billing purposes. MLA is offered in increments of 1Gbit aggregate throughput or in subscription tiers which offer lower per-Gbit pricing. There are no charges related to the number of instances deployed.
Figure 1 - Metered Licensing Example
In the example above, the measured maximum usage on each of the four devices is 2.5, 2.5, 2.3 and 0.6 giving an aggregate for the month of 7.9Gbit. In this case a number of possible billing scenarios emerge depending on the subscription:
- If not subscribed to a tier, then bill at the per Gbit rate.
- If subscribed to a tier, and usage is within the tier, bill at the monthly rate for that tier
- If subscribed to a tier, and usage exceeds that tier, bill at the monthly rate for that tier plus any additional usage above the tier maximum at the 1Gbit rate
| Subscription Plan Description | Descripton |
|---|---|
| MLA-1Gb | Metered licensing per-Gbit monthly usage |
| MLA-0-10 | Metered licensing 0 to 10Gbit monthly usage |
| MLA-0-25 | Metered licensing 0 to 25Gbit monthly usage |
| MLA-0-40 | Metered licensing 0 to 40Gbit monthly usage |
| MLA-0-90 | Metered licensing 0 to 90Gbit monthly usage |
Metered Licensing Subscription Plans
Flexibility
With MLA, customers may move up and down tiers or simply consume in 1Gbit increments from month to month in line with application delivery demands. This flexibility ensures that application delivery resources are always right-sized and removes the requirement to overprovision resources to accommodate seasonal peaks. As MLA is based on throughput, customers may deploy LoadMaster instances without having to purchase unit licenses which delivers the flexibility required in dynamic environments such as DevOPS.
Metered Licensing for Enterprises
Enterprises face a dynamic application delivery environment where seasonal variations, new application delivery methods and hybrid cloud place varying demands on resources. MLA removes traditional licensing restrictions (such capacity and platform) to allow for delivery of right-sized capacity on any platform for any period of time. This total flexibility in how and where application delivery resources are provided simplifies capacity planning and removes complexity from cloud migration and transition. Organizations that encounter seasonal spikes in demand can avoid having to provision for the worst-case scenarios as MLA allows dynamic scaling of resources.
Metered Licensing for Service Providers
MLA gives service providers the capability to deliver load balancing and application delivery services to customers and to use LoadMaster for delivery of their own systems. With no restriction on the number of customer instances deployed, MLA provides a scalable and profitable way to create new value added services and to enhance existing services. It also allows service providers to align costs with revenue and to avoid purchasing hardware solutions that charge a premium for multi-tenancy features and do not scale in line with revenues.