AVEVA Flex is AVEVA’s subscription program for buying and consuming its software portfolio. Under it a customer buys Flex credits, a prepaid virtual currency, and spends them on cloud, hybrid or on-premises products at the rate set for each product in a credits agreement. AVEVA describes Flex as spanning “any mix of cloud, hybrid and on-premises solutions” across its portfolio.[1] The CONNECT documentation is more direct: Flex credits are “AVEVA’s way of charging customers for using its software”, whether on premises or in the cloud.[2] Consumption is recorded and shown in CONNECT, AVEVA’s cloud platform. CONNECT also manages credit agreements and budgets and provides product licensing and entitlement services.[16] For the general model, see subscription and consumption licensing.
Editions
The Flex page lists three commercial tiers. Each one includes a different level of the Customer FIRST support program.[1]
| Tier | Described as | Included support |
|---|---|---|
| Flex | Flexible product licences and cloud services; licences can be activated or deactivated as business needs change | Customer FIRST Standard |
| Flex Enterprise | Single subscription program for large multi-site enterprise deployments; enterprise pricing for contracts of 3 years or more | Customer FIRST Premium |
| Flex Enterprise Plus | Personalized enterprise subscription to the full portfolio; enterprise pricing for contracts of 3 years or more | Elite Customer FIRST, quarterly business reviews, digital acceleration consulting |
Catalog: Flex subscription program. AVEVA Operations Control is sold separately as an unlimited-use subscription for the operations portfolio. It is covered in AVEVA System Platform and InTouch licensing.
Metrics
Credits agreement and rate plan
Each customer has a credits agreement. It records the number of credits bought, the duration of the agreement, the active services and the rate plan for each service.[3] Catalog: Flex Credits Agreement. A rate plan sets the rate at which credits are deducted when a product is used.[4] Its fields include:
- the hosting type (Cloud or On-premises);
- the product code and name;
- an optional service, where fixed charges apply per folder in which the service is enabled;
- the chargeable type: Product (a fixed rate per billing period), Resource (for example disk storage) or User (unique users per billing period);
- the billing period (Hour, Day or Month);
- optional unit thresholds for volume rates;
- the unit price in credits;
- for LaaS products, an optional user limit on the number of licences that may be granted.[4]
Charge types
CONNECT charges credits in three ways:[5]
| Charge | How it works | Catalog |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed charge | A set number of credits on a fixed cadence for as long as the service is in an active credits agreement, irrespective of usage | Fixed charges apply irrespective of usage |
| Usage charge, active users | Credits for each active user of the service in the period; repeat use by the same user in the period is not charged again | Active User |
| Usage charge, resource usage | Credits for use of a resource, such as a licence file or a training seat; may be counted in terabytes, concurrent users or tags plus devices | Flex credit |
| Resource charge | Credits for a resource made available (for example reserved storage), even if it is not used | Flex credit |
Fixed and usage charges can apply at account level, regardless of the number of folders or instances, or at service level, once per folder or instance.[7] The worked example in the help text: at 20 credits per user per month, five users who access a service in the same calendar month cost 100 credits.[5]
Product-specific meters
Some services report their own units, which are then converted into credits:
- AVEVA Advanced Analytics charges in AA units. An AA unit is the count of active model topics plus the count of active threads divided by four, rounded up. Six active model topics and ten threads therefore equal nine AA units. The subscribed Flex part number carries a preset number of AA units with a fixed monthly credit cost. AVEVA reviews usage monthly and contacts the customer if usage exceeds the allowance.[14]
- CONNECT data services reports streams stored, streams accessed and shared streams accessed per day, plus a total streams accessed figure. Rate plans either combine a monthly fixed fee with daily thresholds, or apply tiered per-stream daily rates to total streams accessed. A stream accessed twice in a day by two users counts once.[15]
Counting / floors
Charge periods. Charge periods are normally a day or a month; an hourly period exists but is rarely used. They run on UTC unless an AVEVA representative sets the credits agreement to the time zone of most end users.[6] A user is charged on first access when no charge period is active, and again whenever an active session overlaps the start of the next period. With a monthly period, a session open across a month boundary is charged in both months. For cloud services there is no limit on sessions within a charged period. Products licensed through LaaS have a per-product limit on parallel sessions.[6] Active User charges apply however briefly the service is used. “Active User” is the official term, formerly “Unique User”.[6]
Balances and floors. AVEVA deposits credits at the start of the contract, and they can be replenished.[2] Credits are bought from AVEVA and cannot be bought in CONNECT.[2] Catalog: Flex credits cannot be bought in CONNECT. The credits overview shows separate balances for Cloud, On-premise and Universal credits; Universal credits can be spent on both. The burndown resets at the start of each credits agreement year.[12] The minimum purchase is whatever the credits agreement states; AVEVA publishes no general floor.
Budgets and alerts. Account Administrators and Authorized Officers can set a monthly credits budget for the account or for each product. Alerts are sent at 80% and 100% of the budget. Budgets are for planning only, and a budget overrun does not stop users from accessing the software.[11] Catalog: Credits budgets do not stop access. CONNECT also sends emails when an agreement becomes active, a week before it expires, when it expires, and once a month while credits are exhausted.[13] No help page describes what happens to unused credits at the end of the agreement. That question, and how overruns are paid, should be checked in the credits agreement itself.
Virtualization & partitioning
Licensing as a Service (LaaS)
LaaS licenses on-premises desktop products, such as AVEVA E3D Design, from CONNECT instead of from a local licence server.[9] It works on an active user basis. When a user launches a product, a licence for that product is allocated to the user until midnight. The user may open and close the product during that time without further charge.[9] Catalog: LaaS licence; LaaS licence lasts until midnight; new charge after.
The licence may be used on several devices, within two limits. Each product has a share value limit on concurrent sessions: usually one or five, rarely unlimited, and most often five. The user must also keep the same Windows account and the same CONNECT account. Going over the limit or switching accounts issues a new licence with a separate charge.[9] Catalog: Exceeding share limit or switching accounts creates a new LaaS charge. The CONNECT help calls the same limit “Sessions per Seat”. E3D (feature AVEVA201) allows five sessions per seat, so a sixth parallel session is charged again. PRO/II Simulation (feature SIM500) allows one, so every parallel session is charged separately.[8] If different Windows users sign in as the same CONNECT user, each Windows user is charged separately.[8]
Shared features. Some products on the same credits agreement contain the same licence feature. An example is E3D on premises (FLEX-UENG-002) and Unified Engineering on CONNECT - 3D (FLEX-UENG-068). In that case LaaS sends usage only for the cheapest product, and nothing if the user already holds the feature that day.[8] Catalog: E3D on premises (FLEX-UENG-002); Unified Engineering on CONNECT - 3D (FLEX-UENG-068); LaaS charges the cheapest product for a shared feature. LaaS also has its own time zone setting, and AVEVA advises keeping it within four hours of the credits agreement’s time zone to avoid charging issues.[8]
Client Activated License Management (CALM)
CALM is a self-service portal in CONNECT for managing on-premises entitlements. It can handle fixed licences (initial, annual renewal, free of charge and fixed rental) and flexible rental entitlements. The customer buys Flex Credits, and the contract lists the products available and their cost under the CALM rate plan. The customer then orders licences against a server running the AVEVA Licensing System (ALS), or against a site in the AVEVA Enterprise Licensing System (AELS), and downloads the licence file to the licence server.[10] An order can be cancelled only if its licences have not been downloaded.[10] The Engineering Software Schedule sets the contractual token rules for CALM:
- Token cost equals the tokens per License Access Unit (a Day or a Month), multiplied by the number of units and by the number of Simultaneous Users.
- Licence keys expire at midnight on the last day of the License Period.
- Tokens are not refunded for keys generated in error.
- Tokens still held when the Order Form ends expire without refund.[17]
Catalog: Token (CALM); CALM tokens expire with the Order Form without refund. See AVEVA engineering and simulation licensing.
Cloud / BYOL
CONNECT Cloud Services may be used only for the customer’s internal business purposes, and CONNECT may not be made available to anyone other than the customer’s Users and Affiliates.[18] A CONNECT account can hold up to 100,000 users and 1,000 folders.[16] Because service-level charges apply per folder, the folder structure affects cost.[7] CONNECT stores credit transaction data and usage data, including details of each user’s access to and consumption of services.[16] Combined with the GTC right to collect Usage Metrics, this makes the CONNECT transaction log the primary compliance record for Flex consumption.[18]
Programs
- Flex subscription program: the commercial program and its three tiers.[1]
- Flex Credits Agreement: credits, duration, services and rate plans.[3] Credits include Customer FIRST support, and top-up credits can be bought when needed.[6]
- LaaS and CALM: the two licence delivery services for on-premises products bought with credits.[9][10]
Out of scope
- Credit prices, rate plan values and conversion rates between credits and currency, which are set per agreement and not published.
- The terms of a signed Flex credits agreement (expiry or carry-over of unused credits, true-up of overruns), which were not publicly available.
- Product-specific rate plans for individual cloud services beyond Advanced Analytics and CONNECT data services.
- The AVEVA Operations Control subscription, covered in AVEVA System Platform and InTouch licensing.