Pay-As-You-Go License
This page describes Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) licenses which allow cluster payment on an hourly basis, as part of your AWS bill.
Subscribing to AWS Marketplace
To enable PAYG, it is first necessary to subscribe to WekaFS distributed scalable file system in the AWS Marketplace. This is performed using the following steps:
Click here to go to the AWS Marketplace subscription page.
Review the pricing (see How Does Hourly Pricing Work? below for more details).
Click the Continue button and then confirm by clicking Subscribe. A few seconds later a popup will be displayed.
Click the Set Up Your Account button.
After clicking the Set Up Your Account button, you will be redirected to the Weka Portal:
If you already have a Weka account: Enter your email address and account password. Your Weka account will be linked to your AWS Marketplace subscription.
If you do not have a Weka account: Enter your email address and choose a password for your new account. A new Weka account will be created and it will be linked to your AWS Marketplace subscription.
Your Weka account is now connected to the AWS Marketplace.
Enabling PAYG In Your Weka System Cluster
After subscribing to the AWS Marketplace, a PAYG plan must be created in your Weka account. To do this, go to the PAYG Plans page and click the Create PAYG Plan button. Select the AWS Marketplace as the payment method and click the Create PAYG Plan to complete creation of the plan.
A PAYG plan is simply an ID+secret connected to a payment method, which in this case is your AWS Marketplace. The payment method can be changed at any point without having to reconfigure the Weka system cluster, since the ID+secret pair does not expire unless you delete them yourself.
This method also allows the connection of multiple Weka system clusters to the same PAYG plan.
Once a PAYG plan has been created, the final step is to enable the PAYG plan in the Weka system cluster. This is performed as follows:
Open a terminal and connect to one of your cluster hosts.
Copy and paste the
<plan-id>and<secret-key>from the PAYG plan you created above to the following CLI command:$ weka cluster license payg <plan-id> <secret-key>
What Happens When PAYG Is Enabled?
After enabling PAYG, it is possible to verify that it is active by running the weka status command:
If something has gone wrong, the Weka status shows an error indicating the issue. For example:
At any time, it is possible to reset the licensing status to return to an unlicensed mode, using the follwoing command:
Resetting a license enables the entry of new PAYG plan details or switching to other licensing methods that might be available in the future.
Note: Momentary disabling and re-enabling of licensing does not affect operation of the Weka system cluster and is completely safe.
How Does Hourly Pricing Work?
Weka charges your AWS account on an hourly basis, according to the pricing details published in the AWS Marketplace subscription. However, some cases are worth explaining in more detail.
Client Instances Are Free
Pricing in the AWS Marketplace only includes r3 and i3 instances, while it is possible to install the Weka system on many other types of instances (see Supported EC2 Instance Types for a complete list). This is because Weka only charges for backend instances, which are the instances storing the data in the cluster. Client instances, which also includes r3 instances when installing as clients, are free of charge.
Duplicate Charge Protection
When enabling PAYG, the Weka system cluster sends a usage report to the Weka Portal. This usage report contains the information necessary for correctly charging your AWS account. If PAYG is enabled and disabled multiple times in the same hour, multiple usage reports will be sent, which may cause duplicate charges.
The Weka Portal protects against such duplicate charges by ensuring that a cluster is never billed more than once in each given hour. It is possible to view a detailed list of usage reports in your Weka Portal account, with duplicate usage reports marked separately from the other reports.
Billing Multiple Clusters
It is possible to use the same PAYG plan, or multiple PAYG plans assigned to the same AWS Marketplace subscription, with more than one Weka system cluster. In such situations, the accumulated charges will appear in your AWS bill, as the AWS Marketplace receives aggregated charges for each hour. it is possible to see the usage for each cluster separately under the usage reports screen in your Weka account.
Unsubscribing
When unsubscribing, make sure to cancel your subscription from your AWS account. Subscriptions take up to 1 hour to be canceled, after which it is possible to re-subscribe and update your PAYG plans to charge the new subscription.
When unsubscribing, any existing clusters will become unlicensed, just as if their licensing status has been reset through the CLI.
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