TIBCO Spotfire licensing

Spotfire is TIBCO’s analytics platform. It has two licence generations in circulation: the current product licences described on the Spotfire License Information page, and legacy licences that remain in force for customers whose contracts have not been updated. The Spotfire documentation says the model to use is “determined by your current contract” and tells administrators to ask the Spotfire account team if unsure.^[3] The correct starting point for any Spotfire review is therefore the order, then the matching model below.

Governing documents

The Business Unit Terms contain a Spotfire section stating that Spotfire products are available under the product terms at the Spotfire licence page, with maintenance under the Maintenance Terms and further product-specific terms in the additional terms document. It also provides that customers with a valid and current Subscription are eligible for advisory and enablement services as part of a Customer Success Program, provided at Spotfire’s discretion.^[8] The Spotfire License Information page is headed “Effective Dec 2, 2024” and says each End User licence entitlement provisioned by the customer administrator must match the Spotfire product and user quantity licensed under the applicable Order.^[1] That sentence places the burden of configuring entitlements accurately on the administrator.

Current licence model

Definitions

The page defines the user types on which the model rests.^[1]

• Named User: an identifiable individual, not necessarily named at the time of the grant, designated to access the Product regardless of whether the individual is actively using it. A person is designated on the earlier of authorisation or first access.
• Analytics User and Industry Pro User: Named Users with access to the Analytics or Industry Pro features defined in the documentation.
• Analysis Consumer and Analysis Viewer: Named Users who can interact with, or only view, an analysis or analytic application.
• External Analysis Consumer and External Analysis Viewer: consumers or viewers that are third-party end users not employed by, or a service provider employee of, the customer’s organisation.
• QuantumCast User: a Named User with access to the QuantumCast products.
• Core and vCPU: a processing unit within a CPU, and a virtual CPU of a virtual machine that can run one processor thread on a physical CPU.
• Managed Asset: an analysis, dataset, information link, information element or other item stored in the Spotfire Library.

Licences

The table summarises the page.^[1] Three points deserve emphasis. Spotfire Enterprise is a server-side licence that includes unlimited consumers but not authoring; the right to create content comes from Analytics or Industry Pro licences. The External Consumers variant adds third-party sharing, and the customer is responsible for ensuring that external consumers and viewers comply with the End User Agreement as Authorized Users.^[1] The licence-models page describes TIBCO Data Virtualization as now sold under a separate licence and used with Spotfire only as the destination of data, and the licence page lists a Spotfire Data Virtualization licence that Advanced Data Services may use only for views served to Spotfire clients.^[1][2]

The Spotfire Server documentation describes the corresponding group-level licences: Analytics lets users build applications and perform ad-hoc analysis and includes Analysis Consumer capabilities, Analysis Consumer lets users open and interact with applications and includes Viewer capabilities, and Analysis Viewer is a non-interactive presentation mode.^[3] Administrators assign licences to groups, and the documentation states that the administrator is responsible for assigning licences so that the company’s use complies with the commercial agreement.^[3]

Legacy licence models

The documentation lists three older models.^[2]

1. Legacy named-user: identified users with legacy product licences Analyst, Business Author and Consumer. Spotfire Analyst and Business Author always use this model; Automation Services, Consumer, Server (including the data function services), Statistics Services and Advanced Data Services can use either named-user or capacity.
2. Capacity: driven by the environment’s capacity, such as the number of processors, without individual names.
3. Historic: named users plus the number of instances; the page says this type of licensing is no longer offered and is kept for the few customers who maintain it.^[6]

Named users

Legacy licences are cumulative downward: the Analyst licence includes Business Author and Consumer features, and Business Author includes Consumer.^[3] The named-user page states that a named user is counted as a licence used regardless of whether that user ever logs in, and that system users such as accounts used for automated testing count like any other named user. Administrators are responsible for ensuring that the number of named users with access to each tier does not exceed the contract.^[4]

Capacity

Capacity licensing counts processors, using the vendor’s Processor Licensing Policy for virtual machines and physical machines (see TIBCO Processor and cloud licensing). If Spotfire Consumer is licensed by processor, then Spotfire Server, Automation Services and Statistics Services must also be licensed by processor. There is no constraint on the number of processors licensed for each product, and the counts can differ between products, so the customer should check the system requirements to ensure each service has enough.^[5] With “Instance” capacity pricing for Spotfire Statistics Services, one Instance per statistical engine is required; two engines need two Instances. That server is retired and no longer supported.^[5] Anonymous authentication uses the capacity model with one or more named Analyst or Business Author licences added.^[2]

Historic instances and RAM

Under the historic model an instance is the smallest functionally-complete copy of the software. Copies on the same computer or behind a load balancer each count, and the documentation shows how to read the number of Server and Automation Services instances from command-line listings. The Web Player was counted by gigabytes of RAM on the computers where it is installed: installed physical memory for a physical machine and the RAM assigned to the virtual machine for a virtual one.^[6]

Reporting

During the subscription term the customer must certify the quantities deployed at the end of each annual Reporting Period for each component. Each Usage Report is due 60 days after the period; the final report is due 90 days before the end of the final period and covers its first 8 months.^[1] The metrics are as follows, and they can change with six months notice.^[1]

The server makes the work easier. Spotfire logs the required metrics to its database, and an administrator can download a deployment report from the About Spotfire page, with the command-line command or through a REST API. The report contains assigned product licences over time and the number of library items by type, and its data starts from the installation of 14.5.0 or later, or a 14.0.x service pack 14.0.8 or later, with more granular data from 14.5.0.^[7] Customers on earlier versions will not have historical data from this source.

Restrictions

Several terms limit where Spotfire may be used or sold. Unless a mutually executed Order Form says otherwise, Spotfire products cannot be used in the Global Research Market or the Clinical Research Market, which the terms define in detail. Spotfire products may also not be resold or distributed to a named list of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical-device companies and their wholly owned subsidiaries, and Spotfire Advanced Data Services may be accessed only from Spotfire clients.^[9] The Business Unit Terms also provide that add-on Visualizations Mods may be used in Production under an Order but are provided “AS IS” without maintenance, warranties or indemnities.^[8]

Cloud deployment is addressed on the licence page: as part of an active entitlement, the customer may deploy the Software in a Cloud Computing Environment, provided that it ensures the third-party provider grants no one else access, monitors hosting for compliance, and is responsible for any provider violations.^[1]

Review checklist

1. Confirm whether each contract uses the new licences (Analytics, Enterprise) or legacy ones (Analyst, Business Author, Consumer, capacity, historic), and set the product licence version on the server to match.
2. Reconcile named-user group assignments with purchased quantities, including service and test accounts.
3. For legacy capacity contracts, confirm that Consumer, Server, Automation Services and Statistics Services are all licensed by processor if Consumer is.
4. Track Core/vCPU on the data virtualisation, streaming and Statistica servers separately.
5. Download the deployment report before each Reporting Period ends and keep it with the Usage Report.
6. Check use against the research-market and distribution restrictions.