Licensed functions

The base license that is provided with your system includes the use of its basic functions. However, extra licenses can also be purchased to expand the capabilities of your system. Administrators are responsible for purchasing extra licenses and configuring the systems within the license agreement, which includes configuring the settings of each licensed function on the system.

The system uses enclosure-based licensing, where functions are licensed according to the number of enclosures in a system that are permitted to use a licensed function.

The system supports enclosure-based licensing, which allows the use of certain licensed functions that are based on the number of enclosures that are indicated in the license. The system supports the following licensed functions:

External Virtualization: Only certain models of the system support external virtualization. Verify the licensing requirement for your model before you configure external virtualization. The system does not require a license for its own control and expansion enclosures; however, a license is required for each enclosure of any external systems that are being virtualized. Data can be migrated from existing storage systems to your system that uses the external virtualization function within 45 days of purchase of the system without purchase of a license. After 45 days, any ongoing use of the external virtualization function requires a license for each enclosure in each external system. The system does not require an external virtualization license for external enclosures that are only being used to provide managed disks for a quorum disk and are not providing any capacity for volumes. Only Lenovo Storage V5030 and Lenovo Storage V5030F systems support external virtualization.
FlashCopy: The FlashCopy function copies the contents of a source volume to a target volume. The FlashCopy function is also used to create cloud snapshots of volumes in systems that have transparent cloud tiering enabled. The used capacity for FlashCopy mappings is the sum of all of the volumes that are the source volumes of a FlashCopy mapping and volumes with cloud snapshots.
Easy Tier: The Easy Tier responds to pools that have a mixture of flash, enterprise, and nearline storage in any combination. The system automatically and nondisruptively moves data between the MDisks to optimize performance. For example, Easy Tier moves frequently accessed data from enterprise or nearline MDisks to flash drive MDisks, thus placing such data in a faster tier of storage. For the Easy Tier function, the number of licenses must be equal to the total number of control enclosure, expansion enclosures, and any enclosures in any virtualized storage system. For example, if the system is made up of one control enclosure, one expansion enclosure, and one virtualized storage system that has two enclosures, then four licenses are required.
Remote Mirroring: The remote-mirroring function configures a relationship between two volumes. This function mirrors updates that are made to one volume to another volume. The volumes can be in the same system or on two different systems. The remote-mirroring function is licensed per enclosure. It allows the use of remote-mirroring functions on the total number of enclosures that are licensed. The total number of enclosures must include the enclosures on external storage systems that are licensed for virtualization and the number of control and expansion enclosures that are part of your local system. The license settings apply only to the system on which you are configuring license settings. For remote-copy partnerships, a license is also required on any remote systems that are in the partnership.
Compression: Compression is a separately orderable license that is set on a per enclosure basis. One license is required for each control or expansion enclosure and each enclosure in any external storage systems that use virtualization. With the compression function, data is compressed as it is written to disk, saving extra capacity for the system. Only Lenovo Storage V5030 and Lenovo Storage V5030F models support compression.

Data reduction pool licensing

Customers with base licenses and full bundle licenses (if they have a valid software maintenance agreement entitlement for upgrading to 8.1 or later) are entitled to the new data reduction pools capabilities.

The IBM Spectrum Virtualize base license is "all inclusive" and now includes data reduction pool functionality.

Create data reduction pools
Use thin provisioning
Use unmap
Use deduplication
Use compression in data reduction pools

The base license entitles the client to the following functions:

Create data reduction pools
Use thin provisioning
Use unmap
Use deduplication

Note: The optional compression license includes both compression in data reduction pools and Real-time compression.

For Lenovo Storage V3700 V2 and Lenovo Storage V3700 V2 XP models, the base license entitles the client to the following functions.

Create data reduction pools
Use thin provisioning
Use unmap

Note: Deduplication and compression are not available.

For the Lenovo Storage V5030 model, the base license entitles the client to the following functions.

Create data reduction pools
Use thin provisioning
Use unmap
Use deduplication (only on 32 GB model)

Note: The optional compression license includes both compression in data reduction pools and Real-time compression. For the Lenovo Storage V5030 models, compression in data reduction pools and Real-time compression are mutually exclusive in a single I/O group. A system can, however, use Real-time compression in one I/O group and data reduction pool compression in another I/O group.

In addition to these enclosure-based licensed functions, the system also supports encryption through a key-based license. Key-based licensing requires an authorization code to activate encryption on the system. Only certain models of the control enclosures support encryption.Only Lenovo Storage V3700 V2 XP, Lenovo Storage V5030, and Lenovo Storage V5030F models support encryption. Verify that you have the appropriate model before you purchase a license for encryption. During system setup, you can select to activate the license with the authorization code. The authorization code is sent with the licensed function authorization documents that you receive after you purchase the license. These documents contain the authorization codes that are required to obtain keys for the encryption function that you purchased for your system. Encryption is activated on a per system basis and an active license is required for each control enclosure that uses encryption. During system setup, the system detects any SAS attached enclosures and applies the license to these enclosures. If more control enclosures are added and require encryption, more encryption licenses need to be purchased and activated.