License

ZCF uses the License Server to store licenses and allocate license capacity. Administrators can view and track authorization status, authorized capacity, validity periods, and license usage on the License Server Management page. Administrators can follow the process below to prepare the License Server, connect components, obtain and upload license files, and manage licenses in daily operations.

License Management Process

Stage	Description
Prepare the License Server	The License Server is deployed on the management node together with ZStack Cloud. After ZStack Cloud is deployed, select Server Authorization in the corresponding ZStack Cloud environment and enter the License Server address to register and enable the License Server.
Connect components to the License Server	Connect components to the License Server based on their deployment and connection methods. Platform capability components that are deployed with ZCF, such as ZCF Cloud Federation, ZCF Observability, and ZCF Unified Portal, automatically connect to the License Server after you enter the License Server address and port during ZCF deployment. Components such as ZStack Cloud, ZStack ZStone, and ZNS are connected through their own connection methods.
Apply for and install licenses	Download a request key and apply for a license file. After you obtain the license file, upload it to the License Server and wait for the system to automatically verify and activate the license.
Manage licenses	View and manage authorized capabilities, license usage, and upload records on the Current License and Authorization Records tabs.

Core Concepts

ZCF manages licenses by license objects and authorization pools. A license object represents a product, component, or capability that requires authorization. An authorization pool aggregates available capacity for the same license object and metering unit. After a component is connected to the License Server, it uses capacity from the corresponding authorization pool. When you apply for, expand, or troubleshoot licenses, first confirm the product, component, or capability name on the License Server Management page, and submit your license request by using the name displayed on the page. This ensures that the license file matches the license objects used in the current environment.

Item	Description
License object	A product or capability that can be purchased, metered, and renewed, such as infrastructure components including ZStack Cloud and ZStack ZStone, and platform capability components including ZCF Unified Portal, ZCF Cloud Federation, ZCF Observability, and ZCF Network Service.
Authorization pool	Licenses with the same license object and metering unit are aggregated into an authorization pool. Multiple platforms or components of the same type can share the available capacity in the corresponding authorization pool. Capacity for different products, capabilities, or metering units cannot be used interchangeably.
Component access	Products or components that use License Server authorization must connect to the License Server. Connection methods vary by component: ZStack Cloud: Upload the license on the License Management page in ZStack Cloud, select Server Authorization as the authorization method, and enter the License Server address. ZStack ZStone: Configure the License Server address in install.conf during deployment. ZNS: After ZNS is deployed from Application Market, log in to the ZNS service node and run `znscli --server http://{license_server_ip}:{port} license connect`. ZCF platform capability components: ZCF Cloud Federation, ZCF Observability, and ZCF Unified Portal automatically connect to the License Server after you enter the License Server address and port during ZCF deployment.
Usage statistics	After a component is connected to the License Server, license usage is counted and deducted based on actual consumption. When license usage reaches the authorized quantity, expand the license or release corresponding resources.

Licensing Mechanism

License Types

Type	Scenario
Base License	Provides core cloud computing and virtualization capabilities, and defines the base feature scope and scale of the platform.
Module License	Provides additional capabilities or feature enhancements on top of core capabilities, and also covers global management capabilities such as Unified Portal, Cloud Federation, and observability.

Licensing Terms

The following table describes the licensing terms, metering methods, and payment information for licenses used in ZCF. The actual available capabilities are subject to the license file and what is displayed on the page.

Type	License Agreement	License Agreement Description	Metering and Payment
Base License	ZStack Cloud Standard	Provides a full set of computing, storage, and network virtualization features to meet flexible and diverse business requirements.	Paid license. The number of manageable compute nodes is calculated by purchased physical CPU sockets or physical CPU cores, depending on the purchased license type. Within the licensed period, you can use the full set of computing, storage, and network virtualization features of the cloud platform. Suitable for enterprise production environments.
	ZStack Cloud Enterprise	Provides a full set of computing, storage, and network virtualization features, plus enhanced capabilities such as GPU passthrough, GPU virtualization, resource orchestration, and auto scaling, to meet flexible and diverse business requirements.	Paid license. The number of manageable compute nodes is calculated by purchased physical CPU sockets or physical CPU cores, depending on the purchased license type. Within the licensed period, you can use all core features of the cloud platform. Suitable for enterprise production environments.
	ZStack Cloud XinChuang	Designed for XinChuang and domestic hardware/software environments. Provides core cloud platform capabilities and supports capabilities related to ARM64 and other XinChuang scenarios.	Paid license. The number of manageable compute nodes is calculated by purchased physical CPU sockets or physical CPU cores, depending on the purchased license type. Within the licensed period, you can use the capabilities provided by ZStack Cloud XinChuang. The support scope of XinChuang-related capabilities is subject to the license file. Suitable for enterprise production environments.
	ZNS Community	Provides basic L2 network, L3 network, DHCP, and static route capabilities. It is suitable for evaluation, testing, and non-production scenarios.	Free license. Subject to node scale and usage scenario restrictions. Not recommended for production environments. The authorized quantity is metered by the number of transport nodes, as shown in the license file and on the page.
	ZNS Standard	Provides core networking, NAT, gateway firewall, L4 distributed firewall rules, VPN, DNS, L4 load balancing, Traceflow, and QoS based on ZNS Community.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use the capabilities provided by ZNS Standard. The authorized quantity is metered by the number of transport nodes, as shown in the license file and on the page.
	ZNS Enterprise	Provides advanced network service capabilities such as L7 distributed firewall, L7 load balancing, T0-VRF, and advanced search based on ZNS Standard.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use the capabilities provided by ZNS Enterprise. The authorized quantity is metered by the number of transport nodes, as shown in the license file and on the page.
	ZNS Enterprise Plus	Provides enhanced network capabilities such as EVPN, cross-domain federation, DPU enhancement, RDMA, and full-stack IPv6 based on ZNS Enterprise.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use the capabilities provided by ZNS Enterprise Plus. The authorized quantity is metered by the number of transport nodes, as shown in the license file and on the page.
Module License	VMware Management	Manages vCenter environments and provides independent CPU authorization for VMware compute nodes.	Paid license. If this capability is not authorized or the quota is exceeded, KVM-authorized CPUs are used.
	Baremetal Management	Provides a specified number of dedicated physical servers to ensure the high performance and stability of core applications.	Paid license.
	Elastic Baremetal Management	Provides management licenses for a specified number of elastic physical servers, improving ease of use and flexibility while maintaining the high performance and stability of physical servers.	Paid license.
	ARM64 Server Management	Provides licenses for a specified number of ARM physical servers and stable support for ARM64 servers.	Paid license.
	Disaster Recovery Service	Provides licenses for a specified number of VM disaster recovery instances. VM data is backed up online to backup servers. Local, cross-region, and hybrid cloud backup scenarios are supported to improve data reliability.	Paid license.
	Continuous Data Protection (CDP)	Provides second-level, fine-grained continuous data protection for VMs, ensuring that VMs can be quickly restored when failures occur.	Paid license.
	Tenant Management	Provides all features of the tenant management module, including project, organization, user, permission, and cloud platform operation management.	Paid license.
	SDN Network	Provides hardware SDN network integration and advanced network service management for OVS-DPDK-based software SDN networks.	Paid license. Provided by the ZStack Cloud Enterprise and XinChuang base licenses by default.
	Cryptography Security Compliance	Provides cloud security capabilities based on commercial cryptography for applications, meeting cloud platform compliance requirements in cryptography security assessment scenarios.	Paid license.
	Alibaba Cloud Hybrid Cloud Management	Provides all features of Alibaba Cloud Hybrid Cloud Management and enables interconnection between the control plane and data plane.	Paid license.
	GPU/vGPU Passthrough	Allows a physical GPU to be directly passed through to a VM or virtualized into multiple vGPUs, so that VMs can use the computing power of physical GPUs.	Paid license. Provided by the ZStack Cloud Enterprise and XinChuang base licenses by default.
	dGPU Computing Slicing	Based on CUDA API interception and forwarding technology, dynamically slices NVIDIA physical GPU memory on demand and schedules it to different VMs, allowing multiple VMs to share the same physical GPU.	Paid license.
	AI Model Platform-Base Module	Provides base capabilities such as model repositories, inference templates, and model services for storing and managing AI models, and supports uploading custom models and deploying model services.	Paid license.
	AI Model Platform-GPU	Provides GPU computing capabilities for AI Model Platform, supporting model inference, model fine-tuning, deep learning, and other business scenarios that require GPU resources.	Paid license.
	GPU Device Management	Provides unified GPU device operations and management capabilities, including centralized GPU device viewing, monitoring, and alerts.	Paid license.
	SR-IOV Management	Allows physical NICs to be sliced into multiple VF NICs based on the SR-IOV specification and directly assigned to VMs, enabling VMs to obtain I/O performance comparable to physical NICs.	Paid license. Provided by the ZStack Cloud Enterprise and XinChuang base licenses by default.
	Security Device	Provides SE device encryption capabilities, including SE device identification, virtualization slicing/restoration, and passthrough for VMs.	Paid license. Provided by the ZStack Cloud Enterprise and XinChuang base licenses by default.
	Billing Management	Provides a public-cloud-like billing experience. Resource billing unit prices can be centrally managed through billing price lists, and bills can be generated for administrators and tenants based on those price lists.	Paid license. Provided by the ZStack Cloud Enterprise and XinChuang base licenses by default.
	Resource Orchestration	Uses resource stack templates to deploy and configure resources in batches, manage the cloud resource lifecycle, and provide visual orchestration services for more intuitive and efficient cloud resource orchestration.	Paid license. Provided by the ZStack Cloud Enterprise and XinChuang base licenses by default.
	Auto-Scaling	Provides load-balancer-based VM auto-scaling. It automatically adjusts the number of VMs in a scaling group according to service load changes, improving resource utilization, reducing O&M costs, and ensuring stable service operation.	Paid license. Provided by the ZStack Cloud Enterprise and XinChuang base licenses by default.
	Container Management-CPU	Provides independent CPU authorization for enterprise-level container management, enabling container service features such as multi-tenancy, multi-cluster management, resource quotas, CI/CD, and microservice governance.	Paid license.
	Container Management-vCPU	Provides independent vCPU authorization for enterprise-level container management, enabling container service features such as multi-tenancy, multi-cluster management, resource quotas, CI/CD, and microservice governance.	Paid license.
	High-Performance Block Storage	Provides low-latency, high-performance block storage services for business workloads.	Paid license.
	Block Storage	Provides high-performance block storage capabilities for important business applications.	Paid license.
	Object Storage	Provides object storage services, delivering secure and efficient storage and management capabilities for massive unstructured data.	Paid license.
	File Storage	Provides file storage services for storing and managing file data.	Paid license.
	iSCSI	Provides block storage access based on the iSCSI protocol, allowing storage resources to be accessed through standard SAN protocols.	Paid license.
	High-Speed Network	Provides high-performance network access capabilities within storage clusters.	Paid license.
	ZMetis Metrics Center	Provides metric collection, monitoring dashboards, and reports to help view the operational status of platforms and resources.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use Metrics Center capabilities. The authorization scope, collection scale, and validity period are shown in the license file and on the page.
	ZMetis Logs Center	Provides log collection, log browsing, and log overview capabilities to help query and analyze platform logs.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use Logs Center capabilities. The authorization scope, collection scale, and validity period are shown in the license file and on the page.
	ZMetis Alerts Center	Provides alert integration, alert rules, notifications, and action orchestration capabilities to help handle O&M alerts in a unified manner.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use Alerts Center capabilities. The authorization scope, alert scale, and validity period are shown in the license file and on the page.
	ZMetis Inspection and Assets	Provides inspection, asset, and platform health capabilities to help perform routine checks and resource asset management.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use inspection and asset capabilities. The authorization scope, resource scale, and validity period are shown in the license file and on the page.
	Cloud Federation	Provides multi-platform access, resource collection, and configuration drift detection capabilities for unified management of multiple resource platforms.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use Cloud Federation capabilities. The number of accessible platforms, authorization scope, and validity period are shown in the license file and on the page.
	Unified Portal	Provides unified login, unified navigation, and portal menu capabilities for centralized access to ZCF management capabilities and connected components.	Paid license. Within the licensed period, you can use Unified Portal capabilities. The authorization scope and validity period are shown in the license file and on the page.

Prepare the License Server

Prerequisites

ZStack Cloud has been deployed and the ZStack Cloud management node address has been obtained. In a dual-MN deployment, the management node VIP has been obtained.

About this task

The License Server is used to store and manage licenses and license capacity, and provides licenses to connected components.

Procedure

Deploy the License Server.
Install ZStack Cloud according to the deployment plan. The License Server is deployed together with the ZStack Cloud management node. You do not need to install it separately.
- If a single-MN ZStack Cloud is deployed, the License Server address is the ZStack Cloud management node address.
- If a dual-MN ZStack Cloud is deployed, the License Server address is the ZStack Cloud management node VIP address.
- The default License Server port is 8201.
Register and enable the License Server.
1. Log in to the ZStack Cloud UI that corresponds to the management node where the License Server is deployed.
2. Go to Default Region > License Management.
3. Click Upload License.
4. In Authorization Method, select Server Authorization.
5. Enter the License Server address and save the configuration.
6. After the configuration is saved, the License Server is registered and enabled, and the current ZStack Cloud environment is connected to the License Server.
Confirm the License Server status in ZCF.
1. Complete ZCF deployment and confirm that ZCF is accessible.
2. Switch to Global Management and go to the License Server Management page.
3. Confirm that the License Server status, address, and version information at the top of the page are normal.
Note: If the page indicates that the License Server is unavailable, check the management node where the License Server is deployed, network connectivity, and service status.

What to do next

After the License Server status is normal, connect the components that require authorization to the License Server.

Connect Components to the License Server

Prerequisites

The License Server has been deployed and enabled.
The License Server address and port have been obtained.
The components that require authorization have been deployed or are being prepared for deployment.

About this task

Components can use license capacity on the License Server only after they are connected to the License Server. Licenses with the same license object and metering unit are aggregated into an authorization pool. Multiple components of the same type can share available capacity in the corresponding authorization pool. Capacity for different products, capabilities, or metering units cannot be used interchangeably.

Procedure

Confirm the License Server address and port.
- If the License Server is deployed on a single-MN ZStack Cloud, the License Server address is the ZStack Cloud management node address.
- If the License Server is deployed on a dual-MN ZStack Cloud, the License Server address is the ZStack Cloud management node VIP address.
- The default License Server port is 8201.
Connect ZStack Cloud.

Log in to the ZStack Cloud UI that needs to connect to the License Server, go to Default Region > License Management, click Upload License, select Server Authorization as the authorization method, enter the License Server address, and save the configuration. After the configuration is saved, confirm that ZStack Cloud is connected to the License Server and that the authorization status is normal.
Connect ZStack ZStone.

During ZStack ZStone deployment, configure the License Server address and port in install.conf. After deployment, confirm that ZStack ZStone is connected to the License Server and that the authorization status is normal.
Connect Network Service.

After ZNS Network Service is deployed from the Application Market, log in to the ZNS service node and run znscli --server http://{license_server_ip}:{port} license connect. After the command is executed, confirm that ZNS is connected to the License Server and that the authorization status is normal.
Connect ZCF Cloud Federation, ZCF Observability, and ZCF Unified Portal.

During ZCF deployment, enter the License Server address and port in the Installer or Application Market. After deployment is complete, ZCF Cloud Federation, ZCF Observability, and ZCF Unified Portal automatically connect to the License Server. No additional operation is required.

What to do next

After components are connected to the License Server, apply for and upload the license file to the License Server. Components consume capacity from the corresponding authorization pool based on actual usage.

Apply for and Install Licenses

Prerequisites

The License Server status is normal.
The licensing terms, license quantities, and validity periods for the license request have been confirmed.
The components that need license capacity have been connected to the License Server, or are ready to connect after the license is uploaded.

About this task

To request a license, use a request key. To install and activate the license, upload the license file.

Procedure

Download the request key.
Go to Global Management > License Server Management and click Download Request Key.
Apply for licenses.
Use the downloaded request key to apply for licenses through official channels and obtain the license file.

Return to the License Server Management page in ZCF, click Upload License, and upload the obtained license file.

Note:

Upload the license file package. Do not decompress the package or damage its format.
After the file is uploaded, the system verifies whether the license file applies to the current environment, is within its validity period, and contains available license capacity. If the verification succeeds, the license is automatically activated. If a license package contains multiple authorization entries, the page displays the numbers of successful and failed entries.

If license upload fails, refer to the following causes and handling suggestions:

Failure Cause	Handling Suggestion
Invalid file format	Make sure you upload the official license file, and that the file has not been decompressed, renamed, edited, or damaged.
License does not match the current environment	Download a new request key from the License Server Management page in the current ZCF environment, and use the new request key to apply for licenses again.
License expired or not yet effective	Confirm that the license is within its validity period. If the license has expired, apply for a license that is valid for the required time period.
License object is unavailable	Confirm that the license object belongs to the purchased or deployed capability scope of the current environment. If you have questions, contact official technical support for confirmation.
License already imported	Do not upload an imported license file again. To replace, expand, or renew a license, upload a newly applied license file.

What to do next

After the license is activated, you can view effective license objects, license quantities, used quantities, available quantities, metering units, validity periods, and status on the License Server Management page.

Manage Licenses

After licenses are installed and components are connected, administrators can view authorized capabilities, license usage, validity periods, and upload records on the License Server Management page. They can also renew licenses, expand capacity, or release resources based on license status and management needs.

View Licenses

Tab	Description
Current License	View effective license objects, license quantities, used quantities, available quantities, metering units, validity periods, and status.
Authorization Records	View upload time, upload batch, license type, license object, metering unit, license quantity, license start time, expiration time, and upload user.

License Status

Status	Description	Handling Suggestion
Valid	The license is within its validity period, and the corresponding authorization pool still has available capacity.	No action is required. You can continue to use the corresponding capability.
Expiring soon	The license is approaching its expiration time, and the page reminds administrators to renew it in time.	Use the request key from the current environment to apply for a new license, and upload the new license before the current one expires.
Expired	After a license expires, the quantity provided by this license is no longer counted in the authorization pool.	Apply for and upload a valid license again. If you no longer use the corresponding capability, release related resources.
Usage reaches the limit	Component usage has reached the available capacity in the authorization pool.	Expand the license or release corresponding resources. After the authorization pool has available capacity, you can continue to use the corresponding capability.
License Server unavailable	When the License Server is inaccessible, the page might fail to refresh license status, upload records, or license usage.	Recover the License Server as prompted on the page, and then refresh the status. After recovery, you can continue to install, renew, and view licenses.

Capacity Expansion and Capability Extension

Scenario	Description	Handling Suggestion
Capacity expansion	A new license with the same license object and metering unit can be added to existing licenses.	After the new license is uploaded, the license quantities are aggregated into the same authorization pool. Each license keeps its own validity period.
Capability extension	To enable additional platform capabilities, obtain and upload a separate license for the corresponding capability.	Apply for and upload the corresponding module license. The new module does not affect existing licenses.

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