FlashSoft FAQs

[JustSomeSSDGuy]

I tried to read up on the licensing scheme from what I can from your website. It's not clear how FlashSoft goes about licensing, and how they keep track of licensing. Some more questions:

1) Is the license transferable?

2) Does it make a diff what SSD I have, and if that affects licensing?

3) If there's a cluster, how does it affect licensing?

4) If I want to try it out, is there a temp license I can use, and how long can I use it for?

[JustSomeSSDGuy]

So . . .my boss asks me if there's a way to migrate licenses if for some reason I bought X for one platform, but now I want to migrate to a different platform (ie, say from Linux, then over to ESX). Inquiring minds want to know.

[gsmith_1]

Lots of good questions here. I’ll try to answer them one at a time:

1. The FlashSoft license is perpetual. One license entitles you to run FlashSoft on one server for as long as you like. You can change the SSD in the server, and if you move the SSD to a different server, you can uninstall FlashSoft from its original server and install it on the new server. (Our support team can help you activate the software on the new server.) FlashSoft is licensed per server, regardless of the amount of memory, CPU cores, etc. so there’s no penalty for moving to a bigger server.
2. The license is the same regardless of what kind of SSD you use. In fact, if you install FlashSoft 3.2 for Windows or Linux on a server, you can deploy up to four caches on the server, each cache up to 2TB in size, all under a single server license.
3. If servers are clustered, you still need one license for each server in which FlashSoft is installed. If you have a passive failover server that does not have an SSD, you can run FlashSoft on the active server, but you don’t need to install it on the server that doesn’t have an SSD.
4. Yes, SanDisk offers a free 30 day evaluation. Contact flashsoft.sales@sandisk.com for more information. 

As for your additional question, the two products are distinct, so we generally do not support cross-upgrading across products. Please speak with us if you think you may need to do this.

Thanks - we’re looking forward to working with you!

[Enkidu]

You'll have to contact your SanDisk reps and ask them to transfer the license between platforms.  They'll let you know about costs associated with the move as well.