License Tracking

Note: For IBM Watson Annotator for Clinical Data Container Edition, the License Service is required to be running on your cluster in accordance with the pricing rule for IBM containerized software.

The IBM License Service is an available option for monitoring and measuring license usage of ACD. License usage is based on a Virtual Processor Core (VPC) metric. For ACD, it is the top-level pod merative-acd-acd that will be metered for VPC usage. The usage will be the capacity of the node where this pod runs. For example, ACD running in a cluster with 16 CPU/node has license usage = 16 VPC. The ACD CPU limit can be adjusted by the number of replicas configured and the size of the nodes where ACD runs. For more information on configuration, see Configuration.

ACD license use types include:

As a required prerequisite for the Configuration Editor, an ACD installation with the license use type of ConfigurationEditor does not apply its metrics towards the purchased virtual processor core (VPC) licenses.

The IBM License Service collects and stores the license usage information which can be used for audit purposes and for tracking license consumption at the cluster level. The solution works in the background and does not require any configuration. Only one instance of the License Service is deployed per cluster.

Review Validating if License Service is deployed on the cluster, and use the License Service APIs to generate usage audit reports (see License Service documentation).

If Validating if License Service is deployed on the cluster determines that the License Service is not deployed on the cluster where you have deployed ACD, or the License Service does not return a status of Running, refer to the information about License Service, including how to install, retrieve license usage data, and troubleshoot. See the License Service documentation.

If deploying the License Service to a disconnected or air-gapped cluster, see the offline installation License Service.

To ensure license reporting continuity, make sure that License Service is successfully deployed. It is recommended to periodically verify whether it is active.

To validate whether License Service is deployed and running on the cluster, log into the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster and run the following command:

The following response is a confirmation of successful deployment:

The License Service is accessible via the ibm-licensing-service-instance route that is created as part of the License Service setup.

In order to run the report, the ibm-licensing-token secret’s token must be retrieved and provided on the above service. Once run, the results will show the ACD usage. For example:

Note: If you upgraded from IBM Watson Annotator for Clinical Data Container Edition to Merative Annotator for Clinical Data Container Edition, your ACD usage report may still indicate “IBM Watson Annotator for Clinical Data Container Edition”, however, the License Service is correctly collecting metrics for your Merative ACD usage.

Remember to archive the license usage evidence before you decommission the cluster where ACD was deployed. Retrieve the audit snapshot for the period when ACD was on the cluster and store it in case of audit.

For more information about the licensing solution, see License Service documentation.

For FAQs related to Container licensing, see Container Licensing FAQs.