Gigamon’s end-user terms are published as a set of documents rather than a single agreement. The terms index lists the Products Terms and Conditions for hardware and software, the Support and Maintenance Agreement, the Limited Warranty, the End of Sale and End of Life terms, the Supplement for products with data use limits, and federal product terms, followed by separate terms for professional services and education services.[7] This article walks through the product, support and lifecycle documents in the order a software asset manager is likely to meet them.
Assent and the entire agreement
The Products Terms are assented to by clicking accept, checking a box, submitting a purchase order, or downloading, installing, accessing or using a Gigamon product. They bind the customer unless the customer has another valid contract for the purchase and use of Gigamon’s products and services.[1] The agreement, the Support Terms and any applicable supplement are the entire agreement, and additional or conflicting terms on a customer purchase order or on a channel partner’s document have no force or effect.[1] A customer relying on negotiated terms should confirm they are expressed in a signed contract that displaces the online terms.
Licence grant and related definitions
Gigamon grants a non-exclusive, worldwide, non-sublicensable (except to Authorized Contractors), non-transferable perpetual or Term License to use software in object code only for internal network visibility purposes, solely with Gigamon Hardware or a Supported Virtualization Environment.[1] “Software” includes firmware embedded in the hardware, accompanying documentation, and upgrades and updates provided by Gigamon or an Authorized Channel Partner. “Products” means software, hardware or a combination.[1]
Authorized Contractors are individuals or entities (other than Gigamon competitors) the customer authorises to use a product solely for the customer’s internal use. The customer may sublicense to them for the sole purpose of providing services to the customer, and remains liable for their actions.[1] This matters for managed-service arrangements: an outsourcer operating the customer’s own Gigamon deployment is within scope, while offering Gigamon functionality to the outsourcer’s other customers is not (see Restrictions).
Four special licence forms sit alongside the commercial licence.
| Form | Duration | Key conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Term License | The period on the quote or purchase order | Starts when the software is made available for download or the key is issued; on expiry the software may no longer function[1] |
| Limited Availability software | One year after download unless agreed otherwise | Internal use; Gigamon receives telemetry including AI prompts entered and limited anonymised data; opting out ends access immediately[1] |
| Pre-Release software | Thirty days after download unless agreed otherwise | Non-production use and evaluation; confidential; no right to Support[1] |
| Evaluation | Period specified by Gigamon, otherwise 30 days | Internal demonstration, test or evaluation only; hardware returned and software destroyed within 30 days after the period; no right to Support[1] |
If evaluation hardware is not returned on time, Gigamon invoices it at the price previously agreed or the then-current list price, and the customer bears the replacement cost of loss or damage before Gigamon receives it.[1]
Restrictions
Section 3 of the Products Terms lists what the customer may not do or permit. Beyond the usual bars on copying, reverse engineering and removing notices, the restrictions of licence-management interest are:
- commercialising the products or any feature for third parties, whether as an application service provider or on an outsourcing, membership, subscription, rental, service bureau, managed, hosted or similar basis;
- using software licensed for a specific device, physical or virtual, on another device;
- causing software to be subject to any open source obligations;
- using the products or related APIs to create a similar or competitive product or service, to copy features, or to migrate to a Gigamon competitor’s offering;
- using the product for benchmarking or other competitive purposes unless Gigamon has reviewed and approved the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study; and
- disclosing or transferring any implementation of Gigamon’s APIs other than to support the customer’s internal use.[1]
Payment, taxes and late charges
For direct purchases, fees for products and support are payable within thirty days of the invoice date, in US dollars unless the quote states otherwise. Quoted prices exclude taxes, duties, tariffs and shipping. Unpaid amounts accrue interest at the lesser of 1.5 percent per month and the highest rate permitted by law.[1] When products or support are bought through an Authorized Channel Partner, the products terms still apply but payment, tax and delivery terms are agreed between customer and partner.[1]
Hardware and preloaded software are delivered FCA Carrier (Incoterms 2020) and deemed accepted on delivery; software not preloaded is delivered and deemed accepted when made available for download. Title to hardware, excluding embedded and preloaded software, transfers on delivery to Gigamon’s freight carrier.[1] This means that, for a software asset manager, the hardware is owned while the software on it is licensed.
Late renewals
A late renewal of a term-licence subscription is charged a reinstatement fee equal to 15 percent of the annual value of the renewal fee, in addition to retroactive fees covering the renewed term from the date the original term licences expired through the end of the renewal period.[1] The federal terms are organised differently and the late-renewal section does not appear in that document.[5]
Usage reporting and excess use
Gigamon may request usage information. The customer provides reasonable information, such as volume and capacity usage data, on licences activated, deployed or decommissioned within five business days of a written request, as long as Gigamon makes no more than one request in any 12-month period (unless the customer is found to have exceeded its licences), and an authorised representative certifies it in writing on request. If the customer used software beyond the limits permitted on the supplement, quote or purchase order, it must promptly comply and pay additional fees at Gigamon’s then-current list price or previously agreed pricing that remains in effect.[1]
The Products Terms do not contain a general on-site audit clause in the text retrieved for this article; the reporting right is the mechanism they describe. For data-limited products the supplement adds the upgrade obligation, monthly usage reports where GigaVUE-FM reporting is disabled, and a one-year record-keeping duty.[6]
Transmission Data
When enabled by the customer through the GigaVUE-FM Fabric Manager console, GigaVUE-FM sends Transmission Data (information about the products in use, such as licences, data usage, performance, stability and technical support) to Gigamon. Gigamon may use it to provide services and support, to update and improve products, for billing and account management, for anonymised statistical analysis, and to comply with agreements, law or government requests. Gigamon sends licence entitlement data in the other direction. The customer may disable transmission at any time, which may limit Gigamon’s ability to provide certain features, Support or other services. Transmission Data excludes customer proprietary data processed by the products, and personal data, financial data, PCI data and protected health information.[1]
Open source, warranties and liability
The software may include open source components. Where an open source licence requires it, that licence applies to the component and the customer has the rights it grants, such as source access. If the customer uses the software in the form provided, within its permitted scope and with no distribution to third parties, none of these open source licences impose obligations beyond the agreement. Gigamon makes required source code available on request emailed to its legal address.[1]
Gigamon offers the Limited Warranty and otherwise disclaims implied warranties. The products are not intended for hazardous environments such as aircraft navigation, nuclear facilities or weapons systems. Consequential and similar damages are excluded and aggregate liability is capped at the fees paid in the twelve months before the event, with exceptions for personal injury, misuse of intellectual property, payment obligations, gross negligence or fraud, and third-party IP indemnity amounts.[1] Gigamon defends third-party claims that a product infringes copyright, patent or trademark rights, subject to conditions and exclusions, and the stated remedies include procuring the right to continue use, replacement, modification, or termination with a refund (hardware depreciated straight-line over three years; term software and support pro rata).[1]
Governing law
The governing law depends on the customer’s principal place of business: California law and the state and federal courts in the Northern District of California for the Americas, English law and the courts of London for EMEA, and Singapore law and courts for APAC and Japan. Disputes about violation of Gigamon’s intellectual property rights or collection of overdue invoices are governed by California law and may be brought in California courts.[1] Assignment needs the other party’s written consent, except for a corporate reorganisation, merger, acquisition or sale of substantially all of a business or its assets.[1]
Support and Maintenance Agreement
Support is purchased for a separate fee and is subject to the Support Terms.[1] The Support Agreement (last updated 2023-09-07) is between Gigamon and the customer buying support directly or through a channel partner for the subscription term on the purchase order.[2]
- Software. The customer is entitled to General Availability releases and updates such as Maintenance Releases during the paid subscription term, and Gigamon uses reasonable efforts to provide a correction or workaround for confirmed defects.[2]
- Hardware return and replacement. Return and Replacement is not available for support bought for hardware SKUs ending in -HW. Where it applies, the suspect hardware is returned at the customer’s cost and Gigamon ships a replacement within 10 business days of receipt.[2]
- Advance Hardware Replacement. Available as an add-on for certain hardware. For software SKUs ending in -SW-TM it can be bought for a non-renewable five-year term, only at or within one year of the original hardware purchase. The customer returns the suspect hardware within 30 days of receiving the advance unit or is billed the then-current list price of the unit.[2]
- Exclusions. Hardware or software for which support has not been purchased; design, staging or configuration validation; non-Gigamon products; and defects caused by misuse, modification or third-party products.[2]
No gaps in support
Gaps in coverage are not allowed. A customer that buys support after the initial purchase or after a prior support term has expired may be charged a certification or reinstatement fee, plus fees for all gaps in coverage. Gap fees run from the date the initial product shipped or became available for download, or, for renewals, from the date the previous support agreement expired.[2]
End of Sale and End of Life
Gigamon makes commercially reasonable efforts to give at least six months’ notice, by posting on customer or partner portals, of a Last Sale Date after which orders for an End of Sale product are no longer accepted. Support and maintenance remain available for five years after the Last Sale Date for hardware and software intended to enable it, and for one year for software provided as a separate Gigamon-branded product. On the End of Life Date no further support of any kind, even for security vulnerabilities, is available.[3]
After the Last Sale Date an active support agreement is honoured for its term and may be renewed, but renewals may not extend beyond the End of Life Date. Customers with active support at the Last Sale Date receive operating system updates for 12 months and must upgrade to the last GA release in that period (the Final Release). Support of the Final Release then continues for 12 months for a Technology Release, or for a Long-Term Support Release for 36 months from the Final Release date if that date is on or after 2022-11-01 (24 months if before that date), after which only hot patches for priority 1 defects are available.[3] If support lapses for an End of Sale product it cannot be reinstated.[3]
Limited Warranty
The Limited Warranty is available only to the original end customer and covers products bought from Gigamon or its authorised channel partners. The Warranty Period is one year from first shipment for hardware and 90 days from delivery or first availability for software.[4] For hardware with a validated defect Gigamon repairs or replaces it at its option, and replacement units are covered for the longer of the remaining original period and ninety days; if repair or replacement is not commercially practical, Gigamon refunds the purchase price. The warranty is non-transferable and is the sole and exclusive remedy.[4]
Federal customers
Gigamon publishes a variant of the Products Terms for United States federal customers (updated 2025-02-15, for GSA). It has a parallel structure to the standard terms, attaches the Data Usage Limits Terms as an exhibit to the grant, and is construed under the federal laws of the United States rather than the regional California, English or Singapore choices.[5] It treats the products as commercial items under the FAR and DFARS and licenses them to government end users under the licence customarily provided to the public.[5]
Out of scope
Professional services terms and education services terms are separate documents,[7] and this article does not summarise them. It also does not cover the website terms of use or privacy policy.