Licenses

This section explains how to manage licenses in Exasol.

Depending on your contract with Exasol and your business requirements, Exasol provides the following license types:

  • Raw data license: This license type specifies the maximum size of the raw data you can store across databases in the cluster. This is the default license type.
  • Database RAM License: This license type specifies the total amount of RAM that can be assigned to the database in the cluster.

For more information about the license types, contact your account manager or Exasol support.

Raw data volume (unit TB): The raw data volume corresponds to the data volume that is comparable to the size the data would have if stored as CSV files. If you exceed the licensed capacity, you cannot import any additional data unless you delete the data inside the database.

For more information about how raw data size is determined, see Sizing for Data Types and Object Types.

License Limits

For licenses based on data size, a periodic check is done by Exasol on the size of the data. If the size limit exceeds the value specified in the license, the database does not permit any further data insertion until the usage drops below the specified value.

For licenses based on RAM, Exasol checks the RAM assignment at the start of the database. If the RAM in use exceeds the maximum RAM specified in your license, the database will not start.

Enforced Limits

As mentioned above, when storage limits are exceeded, all databases will enter a restricted mode, affecting the following statements:

  • IMPORT
  • INSERT
  • CREATE TABLE AS
  • MERGE
  • SELECT INTO

In this mode, any attempt to execute one of these statement types will result in an SQL exception as shown below: 

[R0010] Statement currently not allowed because latest cumulative database 
raw sizes of 10.6 GiB exceeded raw size license limit of 10.0 GiB (106.2%).
Please increase your license or delete some data and FLUSH STATISTICS.

When the system is above the license threshold, ALL of the above statements are locked, even if they would not result in an actual insertion of data (for example, the MERGE command).

Technical Limits

If an Exasol system exceeds any of the defined technical limits, the database will fail to start. For more information about these limits, see System Technical Limits.

Recommended Actions

To resolve the limit exceeded on your license, clear some large data (DROP or DELETE database tables) and perform FLUSH STATISTICS to update the current database sizes.

Clear sufficient data so that the license limit is below 100%. The checking of license limits is a periodic process, and it may take a few minutes for a database to recognize the uploaded sizes and leave the restricted mode.

Additionally, you can check the EXA_DB_SIZE_LAST_DAY table to view information on database sizes. You also can check EXA_SYSTEM_EVENTS table to view information on license events.

License Model for Cloud Platforms

Bring your own license (BYOL)

Bring your own license (BYOL) license model lets you choose a static license for Exasol software and a dynamic billing for the cloud resources. In this model, you need to purchase a license from Exasol and add it to your cloud instance. This way, you pay only for the cloud resources through the cloud platform's billing cycle and there is no billing for the software. You can always change your setup later to scale up or down your system and the billing changes accordingly. However, there is a limit for the maximum scaling based on your license type (DB RAM or raw data size).

For pricing information on AWS Marketplace, see Exasol Analytic Database (Single Node / Cluster, Bring-Your-Own-License).

You can upload a license and check the validity an limits of an uploaded license using ConfD. For more information, see Licenses.