Back in February, NetApp announced their new QLC-based AFF systems, NetApp C-Series, C being for capacity flash. That new product line alone was celebration-worthy, what was really exciting and involved a touch of burying the lead was the inclusion of a licensing model called ONTAP One which is the all-you-can-eat equivalent of NetApp licensing. When a C-series is licensed with ONTAP One, you get to use all of the features of ONTAP. At the time of launch, my only complaint was that it was only on the new platform, but behind the scenes I was told to watch that space. Well, as of today, all new and existing FAS, AFF and ASA systems licensed with anything more than the bare minimum can now get licenses for everything ONTAP.

NetApp has simplified their licensing to only two options, ONTAP Base and ONTAP One. If your existing system had either Flash, Core+DP, or Premium, you are now entitled to ONTAP One licensing. What exactly does that look like? Here’s a picture:

How do you acquire your new licenses you may ask? Customers with a valid support contract can login to the NetApp support portal, download a new license file and install it. Some features may require you to upgrade to 9.10.1, but you should really be on at least that new of a release by now.

As with all great things, there are some caveats and restrictions but not enough to warrant covering them here. The majority of my readers will be able to proceed as above, and edge cases around the IPA license model versus LICKEYs or SnapMirror Cloud/S3 SnapMirror licenses can be found in the documentation.

ONTAP One is something I’ve wanted NetApp to introduce for years, this will not only eliminate and post-sales problems due to improper configurations but also remove a FUD point for their competition.