Installation

Automating splunk renewals, and, why does splunk as a company suck?

fusednet
New Member

Is there any way of automating license renewals, or will we be perpetually slamming our faces against our desk annually when our splunk license comes due? Note: By 'due', I mean randomly expiring, locking us out of any support and leaving us to post silly questions here.

Tags (3)
0 Karma

piebob
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Splunk licenses do not randomly expire. if you're experiencing issues with your license, you should definitely file a case with Splunk Support.
this is how licensing works:
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/5.0.2/Admin/HowSplunklicensingworks

this is how license violations specifically work:
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/5.0.2/Admin/Aboutlicenseviolations

"Violations occur when you exceed the maximum indexing volume allowed for your license. If you exceed your licensed daily volume on any one calendar day, you will get a violation warning. The message persists for 14 days. If you have 5 or more warnings on an Enterprise license or 3 warnings on a Free license in a rolling 30-day period, you are in violation of your license and search will be disabled for the offending pool(s) only -- other pools will remain searchable and be unaffected.

Search capabilities return when you have fewer than 5 (Enterprise) or 3 (Free) warnings in the previous 30 days, or when you apply a temporary reset license (available for Enterprise only). To obtain a reset license, contact your sales rep."

if you're getting locked out of search because you're violating your license, you should be seeing warning messages before this happens.

kristian_kolb
Ultra Champion

If you're on a TERM (annual) license, I guess that you would need to renew it before the one-year period is up. If you go into Manager -> Licenses you will see when your license expires. Thus you can make sure that your purchasing department are aware of the situation. Also, I think that Splunk (the company) will send out notifications to the contact person on your end, to ensure that s/he is aware that the renewal is due.

If you're on a PERPETUAL license, pretty much the same applies, though I don't think you can see (within the Splunk product) that the maintenance fee is due. However, failing to pay your annual maintenance fee will not automatically (or randomly) lock you out of your Splunk installation. Splunk (the company) should send out invoices in due time.

So, perhaps there is something lacking in the communication between your company and Splunk. As Ayn said above, contact your Splunk sales rep to make sure that they have the right contact details for your account. Also ensure that your purchasing dept is made aware of the importance of honouring the contract, since you end up having trouble if they don't. Perhaps switching from TERM to PERPETUAL could be a solution (if that is indeed your situation).

Lastly, if your license truly expires randomly, I suggest that you make a diag dump, and file a support case.

Best of luck,

Kristian

jrodman
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

I should mention that time-limited licenses (TERM) are currently rare outside of pre-sales scenarios. Most customers have perpetual licenses; this is the default scenario.

0 Karma

Ayn
Legend

It feels like there's more to this than what is said in your post. You should talk to your sales rep.

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