Appliance-based license billing - x360Recover

About x360Recover

Written By Tami Sutcliffe (Super Administrator)

Updated at November 9th, 2022

Flexible billing model 

x360Recover has a flexible billing model, providing several licensing possibilities:

  •  Appliance-based license billing: Appliance-based billing allows licenses on a per-device basis, with servers or workstations as end points at different prices.

How does billing work for appliance-based licenses?

This article pertains exclusively to appliance-based licensing. 

 

Endpoint Licensing

The endpoint licensing model allows you to assign licenses on a per-device basis.

  • Endpoint licensing classifies devices as either servers or workstations with different price points for each. 
  • The designation of server or workstation is based on the actual operating system installed on the endpoint, and is not based on the purpose of each device.
  • Endpoint licenses are applied to a customer location within the License Portal.  You can add or remove Endpoint licenses to a customer location at any time. 
  • Endpoint licenses are not prorated.  Endpoint licenses assigned at any point within a calendar month will incur billing for the entire month.

NOTE:  If insufficient endpoint licenses are assigned to a location to accommodate the installed agents, new protected systems will be unable to register with the appliance, and potentially, existing protected systems will be unable to perform backup operations.

If insufficient licenses exist at a location, the appliance will raise an alert and send a ticket via email alerting or ConnectWise integration if enabled.


Storage Licensing

The storage licensing model allows you to backup an unlimited number of devices to a single customer appliance, up to a specified total storage limit.

For example a 1TB storage license would let you back up any number of protected system until the total backup data stored on the appliance reaches 1TB, at which point further backups would be prohibited.

  • Only a single storage license can be assigned to a customer location at any time. 
  • You may remove a storage license and replace it with another storage license of different size at any time. 
  • Storage licenses are prorated based on the number of days within the month for which they are assigned.  Storage licenses come in either 3 year or 10 year versions, which determines the Cloud storage retention time frame.  

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage for protected systems is billed per GB for any storage amount in excess of your cloud storage pool limit. Depending on your contract with Axcient, you may have a storage pool allowance, or you may have an unlimited cloud storage account. 

If you do not have an unlimited storage account, when deploying endpoint licenses, for each server license allocated you receive 2TB of cloud storage allowance, and for each workstation license allocated you receive 200GB of cloud storage allowance.  This allowance is cumulative and pooled across all your customers protected systems licensed via endpoint licensing.

Protected systems licensed via storage licensing have unlimited cloud storage and are not subject to cloud storage billing. They neither contribute to your storage pool allowance nor do they incur billing for cloud storage usage.  Protected systems licensed via storage licensing have a fixed retention policy on the cloud vault, providing either three (3)  years or  ten (10) years of total retention in the cloud, depending on which storage license type you selected. 


Self-Hosted versus Bundled Licensing

x360Recover licensing allows for the possibility of self-hosted cloud storage. 

Partners may choose to deploy cloud vaults into their own data center,  separate from the Axcient Cloud and manage their own cloud storage. 

  • Protected systems licensed using endpoint licensing that either do not replicate to any cloud vault or replicate only to self-hosted vaults are considered self-hosted endpoints and are billed at the discounted self-hosted rate. 
  • Protected systems licensed using endpoint licensing that are replicated to an Axcient Cloud vault (regardless of whether they are ALSO replicated to a self-hosted vault) are considered bundled endpoints and are billed at the bundled rate.

NOTE: Protected systems licensed using storage licensing are always bundled with unlimited cloud storage in the Axcient cloud. There is no discounted pricing model for self-hosted cloud storage when using storage licensing


Cloud-Only Protected Systems

Any protected system which exists on an Axcient cloud vault without a corresponding protected system on a customer appliance is considered a cloud-only protected system. 

Cloud-only instances happen when a partner deletes a protected system from the customer appliance and either deliberately or accidentally fails to delete the protected system data from the cloud vault. 

NOTE: Partners often retain a temporary cloud-only copy of a protected system, when retiring a live server at the customer site, in order to meet recovery SLA obligations. However, failing to remove a cloud instance of the protected system will lead to billing overages for that cloud-only instance.

Cloud-only protected systems are billed at your cloud-only contract rate..

Important NOTE: The only distinction between a self-hosted, bundled, and cloud-only protected system is the presence of the protected system data on an Axcient hosted cloud vault.  

  • If you remove a protected system at a customer site and replace it with a new protected system, your license allocation remains the same.
  • However, if you do not remove the old protected system from the cloud vault, this will be treated as a net-new cloud-only endpoint and will incur an extra charge for an additional endpoint at your bundled license rate.


How to change your license model

You may freely change license models on any client location at any time.

To change from endpoint licensing to storage licensing (or vice versa):

  1. First, remove all licenses from the location within the License Portal.
  2. Once all licenses have been removed, simply re-assign the new license type and quantity that you desire.

Note that some amount of double-billing will occur when switching license models, as endpoint licenses will be billed for the entire month, and storage license will be prorated based on the day of the month at which the change occurs.


Related knowledgebase articles:


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