Licenses for Clustering

You assign feature licenses to the cluster as a whole, not to individual nodes. However, each node of the cluster consumes a separate license for each feature. The clustering feature itself does not require any licenses.

When you add the control node to the management center, you can specify the feature licenses you want to use for the cluster. Before you create the cluster, it doesn't matter which licenses are assigned to the data nodes; the license settings for the control node are replicated to each of the data nodes. You can modify licenses for the cluster in the System (system gear icon) > Licenses > Smart Licenses > Edit Licenses or Devices > Device Management > Cluster > License area.

Note

If you add the cluster before the management center is licensed (and running in Evaluation mode), then when you license the management center, you can experience traffic disruption when you deploy policy changes to the cluster. Changing to licensed mode causes all data units to leave the cluster and then rejoin.