K10 multi-cluster manager enables licensing all clusters in the same
multi-cluster system with a single license.
This can be achieved by installing a single license on the primary cluster,
which will then distribute license leases to secondary clusters.
Any excess license capacity from licenses installed on secondary clusters,
will be contributed to a global pool of licenses maintained by the primary
cluster.
When Multi-Cluster license management is enabled, a cluster can contribute its
excess license capacity to the multi-cluster license pool.
The excess license capacity is the difference between the sum of node limits of
valid licenses installed in the cluster and the number of worker nodes in the
cluster.
Clusters that do not have sufficient licenses will use the Multi-Cluster
license pool to meet the licensing requirements.
E.g. There are two clusters, A and B, in a Multi-Cluster system, with 4 and
5 worker nodes, respectively.
A license for 10 nodes is installed in cluster A, and cluster B has no
licenses.
The 10 node license covers the 4 nodes in cluster A, and there is an excess
license capacity of 6 (= 10 - 4) on this cluster.
This excess license capacity can be leased by cluster B to meet its license
requirement for 5 nodes.
Both clusters are licensed with a single license in cluster A.
To enable Multi-Cluster license management, the primary cluster needs to be
setup with an ingress, which the secondary clusters are able to connect to.
When deploying a new multi-cluster system, the ingress may be set using
Setup-Primary Command. If an ingress was not specified when setting up
the primary, the ingress may be set by rerunning the setup command or by
editing the Cluster resource directly. See Upgrading for
details.
When Multi-Cluster license management is enabled, a Multi-Cluster Lease will
be available on each clusters K10 dashboard's Settings -> Licenses page.
This lease is valid for an hour, and clusters will connect to the primary
cluster to renew the lease prior to expiry.
Example lease of a cluster leasing from the Multi-Cluster license pool:
This cluster has 2 worker nodes, but does not have any valid licenses
installed locally.
The cluster is leasing 2 nodes from the Multi-Cluster license pool, to
license its 2 worker nodes.
Example lease of a cluster contributing to the Multi-Cluster license pool:
This cluster has 2 worker nodes and licenses installed locally for 100
nodes.
The cluster is contributing excess license capacity of 98 (= 100 - 2)
nodes to the Multi-Cluster license pool.
K10 multi-cluster dashboard's Global K10 Resources -> Licensing page
provides the cumulative license capacity of the Multi-Cluster system, and the
cumulative number of worker nodes licensed in the Multi-Cluster system.
License capacity of this multi-cluster system is 100 nodes, and the
sum of worker nodes in this multi-cluster system is 4.
