Licensing model for SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted
This topic applies to all SolarWinds Platform products.
Some capabilities of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted are available as standalone Orion® modules. Licenses for modules have varying charge metrics based on the capability delivered.
SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted licensing model
SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted offers simple, node-based licensing in the following tiers:
- Essentials
- Advanced
- Premier
The license tiers determine the number of monitored nodes and available features. Licenses are multi-year contracts, billed annually. When the subscription expires, polling new data for the product stops.
Standard licenses can be scaled to Enterprise level, granting additional features and capabilities. Enterprise licenses are available for deployments with 500 or more nodes and are required for deployments exceeding 1,500 nodes.
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ICMP nodes don’t consume a license when you monitor availability only (ping). If you enable additional monitoring—such as application monitors, NCM profiles, interfaces, or other services—the node counts against your licensed node total.
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To find your licensing key for SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted, log in to the SolarWinds Customer Portal and then click Licenses > Manage Licenses.
SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted includes exclusive capabilities along with the Orion® modules.
* These capabilities are also available individually as Orion® modules for standalone monitoring.
† These integrations requires purchasing the corresponding SEM or ARM license separately.
‡ Features available tech preview are included in all subscription levels to encourage testing and feedback. Once the feature reaches General Availability, a different license tier or additional charges may be required for continued use.
For more information on the licensing of individual Orion® modules, see the administrator guide of your specific SolarWinds Platform product.
For example, SRM license levels apply to the number of hard drives and solid state drives and across all Shared Storage (SAN, NAS) systems rather than nodes.
License editions
All license tiers are available in the following editions.
Standard edition
The standard Essentials, Advanced, and Premier licenses include Additional web servers and allow you to purchase High Availability (HA) as an add-on. If you require Additional polling engines (APEs), you need to purchase an Enterprise license.
Enterprise edition
Enterprise licenses are available for the Essentials, Advanced, and Premier tiers of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted for deployments with 500 or more nodes.
Enterprise licenses are the only option available for environments exceeding 1,500 nodes.
Enterprise licenses include lab licenses, additional polling engines (APEs), additional web servers, High Availability (HA), Enterprise Operations Console (EOC), and Advanced Support.
Special licensing features in the Premier tier
Premier licenses include all features available in lower license tiers. Additionally, they include the WPM and SRM modules with unlimited licenses and support overages and value-based licensing.
Value-based licensing
Value-based licensing lets you monitor more of your environment without consuming a full-node license for every resource. Instead, smaller or cloud-based resources—such as VMs, managed databases, or services—use only a fraction of a node license.
Overages
Overages provide additional capacity when your license usage exceeds your base license. This allows you to continue monitoring without disruption or forcing an immediate license upgrade.
Overages enhance your limit by adding 25% of your current license or up to 500 nodes, whichever limit is reached first.
This approach allows you to expand coverage gradually, whether you are adopting cloud, handling seasonal spikes, or increasing visibility across your infrastructure.
Requirements for overages
To use overages, your environment must meet the following requirements:
- A Premier license
- Participation in the SolarWinds Improvement Program (SWIP). See Enable participation in SolarWinds Improvement Program (SWIP).
- The main polling engine server must have outbound connectivity to send usage data to SolarWinds.
Additional integrations
Additional integrations that bring data into SolarWinds Platform: