IBM Spectrum Scale license designation

According to the IBM Spectrum Scale™ Licensing Agreement, each node in the cluster must be designated as possessing an IBM Spectrum Scale Client license, an IBM Spectrum Scale FPO license, or an IBM Spectrum Scale Server license.

The full text of the Licensing Agreement is provided with the installation media and can be found at the IBM® Software license agreements website.

The type of license that is associated with any one node depends on the functional roles that the node has been designated to perform.

IBM Spectrum Scale Client license: The IBM Spectrum Scale Client license permits exchange of data between nodes that locally mount the same GPFS™ file system. No other export of the data is permitted. The GPFS client may not be used for nodes to share GPFS data directly through any application, service, protocol or method, such as Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). For these functions, an IBM Spectrum Scale Server license would be required.
IBM Spectrum Scale FPO license: The IBM Spectrum Scale FPO license permits the licensed node to perform NSD server functions for sharing GPFS data with other nodes that have an IBM Spectrum Scale FPO or IBM Spectrum Scale Server license. This license cannot be used to share data with nodes that have an IBM Spectrum Scale Client license or non-GPFS nodes.
IBM Spectrum Scale server license: The IBM Spectrum Scale Server license permits the licensed node to perform GPFS management functions such as cluster configuration manager, quorum node, manager node, and Network Shared Disk (NSD) server. In addition, the IBM Spectrum Scale Server license permits the licensed node to share GPFS data directly through any application, service protocol or method such as NFS, CIFS, FTP, or HTTP.

These licenses are all valid for use in the IBM Spectrum Scale Express Edition, IBM Spectrum Scale Standard Edition, and IBM Spectrum Scale Advanced Edition.

The IBM Spectrum Scale license designation is achieved by issuing the appropriate mmchlicense command. The number and type of licenses currently in effect for the cluster can be viewed using the mmlslicense command. For more information about these commands, see IBM Spectrum Scale: Administration and Programming Reference.