What is term-capacity licensing?

Term-capacity licensing  is a pricing model that allows customers to purchase data storage based on the raw capacity of their storage infrastructure. This model delivers the cost and flexibility benefits of software-only storage without the supply chain, system integration, and support complexity normally associated with this approach.

By decoupling market-leading software from the underlying hardware, NetApp offers a modern purchasing model that better aligns with how storage is bought and consumed today. It balances the flexibility of software-defined storage with the convenience of purpose-built appliances.

Term-capacity licensing allows customers to purchase the software they need today and benefit from a “pay as you grow” model to deal with their ever-changing data center needs. It also passes through hardware at cost, eliminating customers’ need to source, validate, and integrate their own hardware.

The NetApp^® Element^® term-capacity licensing model delivers flexibility, efficiency, and predictability that are not available through traditional storage purchasing. These purchasing benefits transfer to the customer’s business, especially to the bottom line with large-scale growth.

• Benefit from licenses that are transferable and not locked to a particular hardware
• Pool capacity across your enterprise to maximize licensing costs and simplify purchasing
• Scale your hardware and software independently; buy only what you need, when you need it
• Realize the long-term time value of money by delaying the purchase of hardware or software packs until you are ready to use them
• Take advantage of decoupled HW and SW costs by refreshing HW independently of SW contract renewals or raw SW capacity upgrades, providing the flexibility to defer capex dollars

A term-capacity license can benefit a variety of company environments, based on a range of needs. Purchasing software and hardware independently offers the flexibility that the ever-changing data center demands.

For companies that are seeking the long-term financial benefits of a cloud infrastructure, term-capacity licensing moves some of the burden of capital expenditures to operating expenditures. Because you can push off costs for both hardware and software, you realize the time value of money for your company today and reduce unused resources on your books.

Enterprises of varying sizes can benefit from term-capacity licensing. With smaller-capacity starting points and the ability to pool raw capacity across the organization, this model can be ideal for both large and small companies. Companies with multiple locations benefit by combining disaster recovery and remote office sites with their core, larger production environment—all in one simple model.

Term-capacity licensing gives customers better visibility, usage tracking, and flexible changes to a cloud infrastructure that needs to shift and expand with the increasing demands of data today.