FAQ
Pricing
Licensing
Network Service
Other
Pricing
Q1. Which products are available under the Flex (per device) pricing program?
The following products are included under the per device pricing:
- Enterprise Edition
- Network Management Suite (NMS) Cacti
- Linux Child Server
- Windows Child Server
- GDMAs (GroundWork Distributed Monitoring Agents)
Some of these products require a non-recurring services setup and configuration fee. Other solutions such as the Groundwork Standby Server, Nagvis add-on and other network management components continue to be priced on an annual subscription basis. The Quickstart trial provides a license for GWOS Monitor Enterprise Edition but does not include the other products listed above at this time.
Q2. Do you offer license plus maintenance pricing?
License plus maintenance pricing, similar to that offered by the “Big 4” monitoring frameworks is available for environments larger than 1,500 devices. Contact sales for a custom quote.
Q3. What happens if I want to monitor more than 50 devices?
The annual subscription price is based on the total number of devices to be monitored and the level of support required, the details of which are included on the pricing page. Note that minimum and maximum device limits apply at each support level.
For example:
Devices to be monitored: 70 servers, 25 switches, 20 virtual machines.
Support level required: Email support, business hours.
Annual subscription cost (North America):
(70+25+20) * $40 = $4,600/year
Devices to be monitored: 1,750 servers, 400 network devices, 1,000 virtual machines.
Support level required: Standard phone support (email only support not available for this size of environment)
Annual subscription cost (North America):
(1,750 + 400 + 1,000) * $50 = $157,500/year.
Q4. Can I purchase a subscription for a small environment with less than 50 devices?
Yes. The minimum device counts for each support level will apply.
For example:
Devices to be monitored: 20 servers, 5 network services, 1 external website
Support level required: Email support, business hours.
Annual subscription cost (North America):
50 * $40 = $2,000/year.
Licensing
Q5. Where is the GroundWork Flex license agreement?
The agreement can be found here (PDF, 136 KB).
Q6. Where can I obtain a license key?
Each GroundWork Monitor Enterprise installation requires a license key. License keys are emailed to customers when the GroundWork Monitor Enterprise software is purchased. These emails are sent from “[email protected].” We suggest that this email address be white-listed in your email filtering software. If you need assistance obtaining a license key, please contact [email protected].
Q7. The evaluation License key does not work when I paste it in. What is wrong?
You may not have enabled the network service. It’s required by the eval key. You can enable it like this:
Run the network service installer:
/usr/local/groundwork/network-service/bin/network-service-manager.bin
If you see:
Would you like to enable Groundwork Notification?Please choose an option: 1
[1] Yes
[2] No
Then follow the prompts to accept the Eula and install the network service.
If however, when you run the installer, you see:
The optional GroundWork Notification component is already enabled. Do you want to deactivate it?Please choose an option: 2
Would you like to disable Groundwork Notification ?
[1] Yes
[2] No
change the network_service entry to 1 in Info.txt:
sed -e 's/network_service\s*=\s*./network_service= 1/' -i /usr/local/groundwork/Info.txt
and restart gwservices:
/usr/local/groundwork/ctlscript.sh stop gwservices
/usr/local/groundwork/ctlscript.sh start gwservices
Q8. I did that, and it it still does not work. I installed on a non-US version of Linux. What’s the problem?
There is an issue when using a non-US locale for java. This can be worked around with the following procedure:
Modify:
/usr/local/groundwork/foundation/container/run.conf
Change:
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS \
-Djboss.home.dir=$JBOSS_HOME \
-Djboss.server.name=$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_NAME \
-Djboss.server.home.dir=$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_HOME \
-Djboss.server.home.url=file://$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_HOME \
-Djboss.server.log.dir=$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_HOME/logs \
-Djboss.server.lib.url=file://$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_HOME/lib/jboss \
-Djboss.server.config.url=file:///usr/local/groundwork/config"
to:
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS \
-Duser.language=en \
-Duser.region=us \
-Djboss.home.dir=$JBOSS_HOME \
-Djboss.server.name=$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_NAME \
-Djboss.server.home.dir=$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_HOME \
-Djboss.server.home.url=file://$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_HOME \
-Djboss.server.log.dir=$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_HOME/logs \
-Djboss.server.lib.url=file://$FOUNDATION_CONTAINER_HOME/lib/jboss \
-Djboss.server.config.url=file:///usr/local/groundwork/config"
and restart gwservices:
/usr/local/groundwork/ctlscript.sh stop gwservices
/usr/local/groundwork/ctlscript.sh start gwservices
Q9. Is there a way to copy the license key on to the server without using copy and paste in the browser?
Yes, the file is:
/usr/local/groundwork/config/groundwork.lic
Q10. Can I use the same license file for multiple GroundWork servers?
No. You need a separate license for each GroundWork parent server you use. Child servers do not require a license.
Network Service
Q11. What is the Network Service and how does it work?
The Bitrock Service is a small background program that performs two tasks; I) it provides notifications and messages about GroundWork Monitor II) it provides product usage information back to GroundWork. This information is used by GroundWork to ensure compliance with the license terms and to assist in product planning. The list of information provided by the Network Service to GroundWork is:
- The type of GroundWork Monitor product installed (e.g. Community Edition or Enterprise Edition) and version.
- The Operating System vendor and version and basic hardware information (RAM, CPU).
- The size of the monitored environment: number of devices, number of configured hosts, host groups, service checks, users and service checks being used.
- The hash of the license key applied to this copy of the software.
The data returned doesn’t include personally identifying information; each installation is keyed to a randomly generated unique identifier and the license key hash. The network service communicates via HTTPS. All communication is outbound from the monitoring system, never the other way around. If you have a non-transparent HTTP/HTTPS proxy the instructions for configuring the proxy settings are included in the release notes. The data collection system is in the domain “checkforupdates.com.” This domain is operated by Bitrock who provide this service to our customers on our behalf.
Other
Q12. What is the definition of a device?
For licensing and measurement, a device is an autonomous computing device that is monitored by GroundWork software either by making a connection to that device to retrieve information or by the information being fed to GroundWork software. Each of these are considered a separate device:
- Server
- Workstation
- Desktop
- Laptop
- Virtual machine
- Network device (switch, router, VPN concentrator)
The number of measures, metrics, applications or services gathered from each device does not affect the per-device cost. Devices with multiple network interfaces count as a single device.
Q13. What are the differences between the different versions of Quickstart e.g. Ubuntu, Novell, CentOS?
Each solution bundle includes the same GroundWork Monitor Enterprise software. The underlying operating system is different for each appliance; however the overall monitoring functions are identical.
