This thread highlights the whole issue with how NetApp licensing is managed. The licence is perpetual, as long as the box doesn't change hands. This seems very inconsistent. If a software licence is limited-term (like MS 6.0 per-year licencing) then it makes sense for it to be not transferable. If however the basic license is perpetual and only associated with that physical hardware, then it should be transferable. NetApp's half-way approach is inconsistent and very confusing for the aftermarket - it means that there is most likely now a fair number of 2nd hand NetApp boxes out there running on their original license codes that are now running illegally according to the terms of the licence agreement.
If NetApp were to keep the base licences hardware bound (ownership of the license transfers with the system serial number), they would probably see a small secondary revenue stream from a proportion of 2nd hand owners taking up support contracts - for non end-of-support systems only of course. Instead they want a second bite at the big cherry by forcing 2nd hand owners to pay for a whole new licence, which apart from being morally dubious means that in reality they get nothing because someone who paid $2500 for an old filer isn't going to pay $20K or more for licencing to just to run it legally. And if the system is past the end-of-software support date NetApp won't even sell you a license for a 2nd hand platform - in other words they want to turn all aged filers into boat anchors - not a very good way to promote the value of the system.
If I buy a Mac OS server, run it for three years then sell the server to a friend, my friend now has the perpetual Mac OS license that came with that server. Apple has kept their MacOS licensing hardware bound mainly for historical reasons, but it does save a lot of confusion and concern in the second hand market.
(let's not even begin to discuss the complete mess that is MS OS licencing...)
All this would be meaningless if it weren't for the fact that unlike regular servers, NetApp filers are often useful way beyond their expected official life span. Even an aged "low-end" F720 blows away any current Wintel platform as a plain CIFS server. And likewise you need a pretty high-spec current Unix platform to beat it for NFS. And of course the Unix box won't give you anything like the data protection features provided by the filer.
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