SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Licensing and Pricing Policies
One subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server covers all virtual images on the same physical server.
Subscription Licensing and Pricing Policies
For machines with x86 or x86-64 processors, one subscription is required per physical machine (with a maximum of 32 CPUs) on which SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is installed, in order to receive maintenance updates (security fixes, patches and product enhancements). For machines with Itanium or Power processors, one subscription is required for each physical CPU socket that is used per physical machine on which SUSE Linux Enterprise is installed. For IBM System z mainframes, one subscription is required per mainframe engine on which SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is installed.
Virtual Machine Guests
To encourage adoption of SUSE Linux Enterprise in virtualized environments, we offer unique pricing. One server subscription covers all of the virtual images running on the physical server. You can create as many virtual server images as you want, and get support for them, as long as you have a paid subscription for the physical server they are running on. So whether you use the Xen or KVM hypervisors that are included with SUSE Linux Enterprise, or use third party hypervisors like VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V or Citrix XenServer, no additional subscriptions are required for your virtual images.
Multi-core Processors
Multi-core processor technology, the placement of multiple processor cores in one physical socket, is an exciting development in the enterprise server market. Multi-core processors are essentially a performance upgrade to an existing single-core processor, and as such conform to general licensing policy. SUSE considers a multi-core processor as a single processor for licensing and maintenance of its Linux operating system products.
Hyperthreading Processors
While some software applications may recognize hyperthreaded processors as two processing units, SUSE considers hyperthreaded processors as a single processor for licensing and maintenance of its Linux operating system products.
High Performance Computing Pricing
High performance computing (HPC) is often used in academic and scientific research, and is now experiencing greater adoption within enterprise data centers. SUSE offers special HPC pricing for dedicated workloads. Please contact your SUSE sales representative or your HPC Cluster hardware vendor for further information.
