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March 18-20 | Barcelona, Spaain

 

WSO2 Subscriptions: Service Definition and FAQ

A WSO2 Subscription provides a comprehensive enterprise service experience with WSO2 products. Each subscription includes:

  1. License to commercial distributions of WSO2 products. Products are licensed under the current version of the WSO2 End User License Agreement unless your subscription contract identifies a previous version or incorporates additional terms.
  2. Access and license for WSO2 Updates delivered through WSO2 Update 2.0 and other channels. Updates provide preventative maintenance by eliminating known bugs and vulnerabilities before they impact your system. Subscribers also receive access to confidential security bulletins and alerts to potential vulnerabilities, as well as early access to security updates.
  3. Incident support, providing reactive maintenance for any incidents affecting your production or pre-production systems. We offer two support plans (12x5 and 24x7) with aggressive response and resolution times based on issue severity plus no limits on the number of tickets you can raise. Resolutions often include the creation and delivery of a new update. Details are available in our Support Policy.
  4. 1 business day support for general queries about product usage, development or migration advice, product tuning, or best practices. Query support is subject to hourly caps, as defined by your support plan. The cap can be raised for a reasonable charge at any time.

Subscription services cover all your WSO2 product deployments and all production systems must be included in the subscription. The subscription price covers most development, pre-production, and recovery systems. Consulting services and other value-added services are only available to Subscribers.

Core-based pricing

WSO2 Subscriptions are priced in units of computing cores utilized by the primary production systems. Each core-based subscription also covers, at no extra fee:

  • Up to 3 pre-production environments
  • Passive instances in an active/passive deployment
  • Bursting of on-premise production systems by up to 25% more cores, lasting for up to 3 cumulative days during the subscription year
  • Individual development machines, though please note that issues arising on such systems qualify for query support rather than incident support SLAs
  • Passive Disaster Recovery systems, i.e., systems that don’t accept live traffic until a failover of the primary system
  • Choreo Analytics (cloud-based)

Usage-based pricing

For many scenarios, we offer an alternative price option based on usage. Usage-based pricing generally defines constraints on usage patterns and features. Usage constraints enable lower Subscription prices for customers who aren’t using the full deployment capacity.

API and integration product metrics collected on a monthly cadence use the Subscription month, which resets on the same day of the month as the Subscription start date.

  • APIs: The number of deployed APIs appearing under the "APIs" tab in the API Manager Developer Portal interface. Third-party APIs (which are visibly tagged as such in the API list) are not included in the count. To ensure all APIs are visible, log in as administrator.
  • Integrations: The number of unique message entry points, which can be a REST API, a Proxy Service, an Inbound Endpoint, or a Scheduled Task. Any additional processing units, such as a Message Store, Message Processor, Endpoint, etc. are not considered towards the integration count.
  • Monthly transactions (TX): Within a Subscription month, the total number of 1) incoming request-response message pair processed by an API gateway, or WSO2 Integrator instance; plus 2) messages received via an open WebSocket; plus 3) an outgoing message when an asynchronous message exchange pattern is employed, and where outgoing messages not acting as a response in a request-response message exchange pattern, and which can be a data frame when data is streamed or an event initiated by the API gateway or WSO2 Integrator instance.

Identity product metrics are based on the calendar month.

  • Monthly Active Users (MAUs): The number of unique users logging in at least once during a calendar month; a user logging in multiple times during the period is counted as a single MAU. A MAU annual limit means no monthly usage can exceed the offered MAU limit; typically, any MAU counts exceeding the annual limit within any month will incur extra fees at a pre-agreed MAU rate.
  • Total Users: The highest number of records in the user base within the Subscription period, regardless of whether each user has logged in during this period.

Usage-based models include one pre-production environment (with no usage limits) at no extra cost; additional pre-production environments can be purchased for an additional fee.

Note that when agreeing to usage-based constraints, customers are required to monitor and share basic usage statistics with WSO2. When usage measurements or expectations exceed the limits described by the Subscription, you are required to contact WSO2 to revise the limits.

Renewals

Annual renewals are subject to per-unit price increases as provided in the EULA or an Order Form. The rate of increase can be reduced by entering into a two- or three-year Subscription.

Multi-year periods paid upfront qualify for an additional 3% discount.

WSO2 Private Clouds

WSO2’s Private Clouds provide a private deployment of WSO2 products, combining the ease of SaaS with the security of a private deployment and the complete feature set of WSO2’s open source products. WSO2’s Private Clouds include all software licenses, infrastructure (on Microsoft Azure), management, and support services by WSO2’s expert team within a single annual price. A one-time Setup Fee will apply.

WSO2’s Private Clouds include:

  • Best practice deployment patterns for robustness, performance, and scaling
  • Choice of region (as available through Microsoft Azure)
  • 24x7 monitoring by the WSO2 Cloud team
  • System maintenance, including applying updates and upgrades
  • Enterprise Support, including 100 hours of Query Support
  • Development license to related WSO2 products to ensure any on-prem development environments remain in sync with the Private Cloud deployment
  • Backup and disaster recovery systems (extra fees may apply)
    • One pre-production environment included (additional available for extra charge)

WSO2’s Private Cloud solutions are subject to technical constraints that will be detailed in the service contract.

Customer Success Manager

Premium support service is available by allocating an enterprise Customer Success Manager (CSM) to your account. The CSM acts as a named, primary point of contact for WSO2 support. Each CSM is a member of WSO2’s elite technical support team, providing priority responses to WSO2 product queries and issues, assisting in analyzing, reproducing, and isolating issues and resolving them, or coordinating a resolution or bug fix with the WSO2 support and product teams.

Subscribers with a named contact can access priority support from your CSM through email, phone, and chat in addition to the WSO2 online support system.

With a CSM, your Subscription’s query support limits are waived.

There are two levels of enterprise CSM: Premium and Elite.

Premium CSMs have a dedicated part-time schedule to provide guaranteed availability during a pre-agreed weekly schedule as a portion of work hours in a local time zone.

Elite CSMs work on-site locally; all travel and expense costs are included.

Level name Priority Support Dedicated schedule Unlimited query support On-site
Customer Success Manager – Premium YES 50% YES No
Customer Success Manager – Elite YES 100% YES YES

Licensing & Subscription FAQ

Are WSO2 products open source?

Yes, the source code for downloadable WSO2 products is available under an open source license from our community site on GitHub. Community distributions and custom builds from this source are not commercially supported by us. For enterprise users, we offer supported distributions under the WSO2 Software License, which have been extensively validated and packaged for convenient consumption, including all of the features of the open source product, as well as including update handling features. Along with a license, a WSO2 Subscription includes access to updates and enterprise-grade support services. Many other valuable services can be attached to your Subscription, such as architecture and configuration reviews and other consulting services.

Why should I choose the commercial distribution?

We recommend you begin your evaluation with the commercial distribution - it’s free for evaluation use, and you will receive the latest updates during your evaluation period. This provides the best evaluation experience possible. When your evaluation is complete and you are ready for production deployment, you can continue to use the commercial distribution, be eligible for support, and receive updates by becoming a Subscriber.

Commercial distributions meet the stringent requirements of enterprise use. While bug and security fixes are rolled into the next public open source release at some time in the future, Subscribers receive these fixes immediately as updates to your current deployed version, avoiding the need to engage in a full upgrade cycle to take advantage of the improvements. WSO2-supported commercial versions are eligible for updates for at least three years, so you have more control over your product upgrade cycles.

If you experience any issue, WSO2 stands by Subscribers to work with you to resolve any issue and provide the fastest fix available – reducing the risk of an extended outage that could damage your business operations, customer experience, reputation, or bottom line. Our support system’s secure, private forum handles issues confidentially.

I have a cluster of ten product instances. Can I have one product under Subscription and run the other nine instances as open source?

No. Our license terms do not allow this.

WSO2 product updates may only be used in the commercial distribution under the terms of the WSO2 Software License. We do not offer support services for open source releases or allow a mix of licensed and open source distributions that will muddy license compliance and applicability of support. We also know from experience that large deployments are more complex, and much of our development effort goes towards clustering, administration, performance testing, and tuning, and our prices scale accordingly.

I am using several different WSO2 products. Can I put some types of products under Subscription and use other types without support?

No. WSO2 products comprise a platform, and a Subscription includes all product usage. It’s impractical to provide support in a mixed commercial/free environment. We retain the option to refuse to offer or renew Subscriptions for customers who don’t want to put their entire WSO2 deployment under subscription.

What are the consequences of allowing my Subscription to lapse?

Our license and subscription are tightly coupled. If your Subscription lapses, so does your license to use the supported distributions. If you wish to continue to use open source releases, before discontinuing your Subscription, you will have to migrate to the open source release. The open source release will not entitle you to updates, security bulletins, support, or other Subscription services.

If my Subscription lapses, can I restart it at any time?

Yes, we are always happy to welcome you back as a customer. However, “lapsing” implies continuing to use the software after the Subscription ends, which would violate the WSO2 Software License. To maintain compliance, we would backdate the Subscription to the expiration date. If you have migrated to an open source release and decide to migrate back to a supported distribution, we will happily offer you a new Subscription.

How can I bring my Subscription back into compliance?

License violation, either using licensed software outside of the Subscription term or in excess of the limits defined in the Subscription, must be corrected within 60 days of discovery and notification thereof. Compliance is restored by purchasing a back-dated Subscription for the period of unlicensed usage, beginning at the point license violation first occurs and continuing until either the point the Software is fully removed from the customer environment, or the point a new Subscription is established.

For lapsed Subscriptions, our policy is to resolve license compliance violations fairly and accurately. In most cases our desire is to correct the license violation in a way that propels us into a productive relationship going forward while protecting our interests as a business. We may seek remedies including, but not limited to:

  • Charging up to the full list price (at the time violation occurs) for the Subscription fees required to correct the license violation.
  • Suspension of any technical support services until compliance is restored
  • Requesting additional license compliance assessment mechanisms in a new Subscription
  • Denying access to a new Subscription
  • Termination of related agreements (e.g. partnerships, MSAs)
  • Pursuing other appropriate legal remedies to ensure Software has been removed

Subscription Pricing

What are the pricing options available?

We now offer a range of pricing models, which we attempt to tailor to your requirements.

Our capacity-based model is based on “cores,” which tracks the number of instances of WSO2 products you deploy. The amount of work actually processed within the capacity limits is not reflected in the charges. Core pricing is thus fairly stable and has lower monitoring requirements.

Usage-based pricing models track various metrics relevant to your use case, for instance the number of APIs, integrations, transactions, or users. By uncoupling work performed from deployment details more deployment choices become available - for instance, dynamic deployments in a microservice environment such as Kubernetes where measuring capacity is hard to predict. It also allows us to offer lower prices for entry-level customers with constrained use cases.

What is the basic definition of a “core”?

A core measures a single hardware hyperthread. Modern CPUs usually have multiple physical processing units and hyperthreading, exposing each processing unit as one or more logical processors. For example, many of our desktop machines have at least one dual-core processor. With hyperthreading enabled, this is exposed as four logical processors, which map to four cores to cost out a WSO2 Subscription. Operating system utilities generally show the capabilities as a count of “logical processors” or “threads.” Virtualized environments have analogs.

Are the number of instances per core limited?

No. You can run as many instances of any WSO2 product or profile as you wish within the core allotment. WSO2 solution architects can help you design a mapping of WSO2 product instances to virtual machines and determine the size of these virtual machines to achieve your performance and reliability goals.

How do we measure cores for bare metal?

Hardware server environments generally have a utility showing the count of sockets, cores, and logical processors or hyperthreads. The number of logical processors maps to a core count for purposes of costing out a WSO2 Subscription.

How do we measure cores in Amazon EC2?

Amazon EC2 can be purchased in a variety of Instance Types, that each specify the number of default virtual CPUs (vCPUs). For instance, a t2.xlarge instance has four default vCPUs. Each default vCPU counts as one core for purposes of a WSO2 Subscription, even if you configure the instance to use a lower number of cores or threads.

How do we measure cores in Docker?

By Default, a Docker container utilizes the full capability of the host machine, and core counts will be determined by that host environment. By using the --cpus option, a Docker container can be constrained to a specific maximum utilization of the host environment’s capabilities. The maximum utilization maps into cores for purposes of a WSO2 Subscription. Fractional amounts are allowed both by Docker and within the WSO2 Subscription, e.g. three docker containers constrained by the --cpus=1.5 option will map into a Subscription for 4.5 cores.

How do we measure cores in Kubernetes?

A Kubernetes “CPU unit” counts as a core for purposes of a WSO2 Subscription. A CPU Unit usually maps to an underlying Amazon vCPU, an Azure vCore, a GCP Core, or a bare metal hyperthread.

How do we measure cores in Azure?

An Azure “vCore” or “vCPU” counts as a core for purposes of a WSO2 Subscription.

How do we measure cores in Google Cloud?

A GCP Machine Type specifies compute units in vCPUs; Each vCPU counts as one core for purposes of a WSO2 Subscription.

How do we measure cores in VMWare?

Each VSphere vCPU counts as one core for purposes of a WSO2 Subscription.

How do we measure cores in OpenStack?

Each OpenStack vCPU counts as one core for purposes of a WSO2 Subscription.

Can I run multiple JVMs within a single server or VM?

Yes. For instance, an 8-core server that hosts both WSO2 API Manager and WSO2 Enterprise Integrator JVMs is still priced at 8 cores.

We underestimated our WSO2 usage at the beginning of the year and ended up deploying more than our Subscription allows. How will I be charged for the extra use?

When your installation expands beyond the limits in your Subscription, please notify us promptly, as exceeding the limits noted in the Subscription agreement can result in a violation of the WSO2 Software License and/or a suspension of support services. The Subscription agreement allows you to expand usage limits on a prorated basis; we can calculate these additional fees for you.

We also offer Enterprise License Agreements that build in expectations for expansion and make it easier during the term.

Can I adjust my subscription limit upwards and downwards to handle seasonal bursts?

You can adjust your core allotment or transactional capacity cap upwards at any time, for a prorated fee. Though in many cases you are allowed some bursting capacity over these limits for a limited time to accommodate unexpected short-term loads, an anticipated seasonal burst should be properly planned for in your Subscription. If you have such seasonal traffic you might consult with your Account Manager on whether you qualify for an Enterprise Level Agreement (ELA) which can provide additional headroom for seasonal traffic.

Support Services

Why is there a Query Support Limit?

Query Support is a very open ended offering - it allows you to ask questions about the product, about your deployment, about advice on how to implement your system with WSO2, about interactions with other products, etc. Because there is no circumscribed scope we need to place some limits on the usage in order to ensure our low Subscription prices do not become unprofitable. The Query Support Limit allows us to track usage and prevent this from becoming an open-ended consulting loophole - if the Query Support Limit is insufficient it’s a good indicator that a more traditional consulting engagement is needed.

I did not use up the annual Query Support Limit in my subscription. Can these hours be rolled over into the next term?

No. We provide a built-in free limit that is ample for most customers and have priced it accordingly, with the expectation that few customers will need to go beyond it. We do however offer top-up packages to customers with extraordinary usage.

I've found and reported a bug through my support account. Will it use up my query support hours?

No. If a query is determined to represent a bug in the product or documentation, we will move the issue to our product bug tracking system and resolve it there at no charge to you.

My system is in production and I have a Subscription. Now I'm working on some further enhancements, new applications, and evaluating additional WSO2 products. Can I ask questions about those under Query Support?

Yes. Every subscription includes queries for the express purpose of answering questions about new development, upgrades, migration, and other matters that are not causing an immediate impact on your production systems.

What level of support for tooling is included in my Subscription?

Queries (rather than incidents) can be used for inquiries about tooling provided with your product.