Are you trapped in the perpetual dilemma of choosing between per Host or per Service licensing for your IT monitoring needs? This age-old debate has long troubled IT professionals seeking a monitoring solution that aligns with their unique environments.

In IT monitoring, per Host and per Service licensing refer to different approaches used by software vendors to license and charge their solutions.

• Per Host (also known as per Device or per Node) Licensing is a model where the cost is based on the number of hosts being monitored. A host can be any network-connected component, such as servers, routers, switches, firewalls, etc.. Each host requires a license, regardless of the number of monitoring parameters or metrics associated with it. 
• Per Service (also known as per Monitor, per Sensor or per Element) Licensing is a model where the cost is based on the number of individual aspects being monitored on a device.

It’s important to evaluate the pricing models and consider the long-term scalability and cost implications before selecting the most suitable approach.

Both models have their pros and cons.

👉🏽Per Service licensing can quickly become complex and costly to manage, forcing IT Managers to restrict the number of sensors that are deployed, limiting the breadth of monitoring capabilities. Vendors employing such model tend to initially undersize the solution capacity, advising customers to monitor only few interfaces on network devices and to consider just a minimum number of services per server (10 or even less), which may prove insufficient in practice (and it definitely is, if you want to monitor also applications running on it). When these limitations become apparent, customers are left with the need to upgrade their licenses and incur additional costs.

👉🏽Per Host licensing, with unlimited Services, overcomes such limitations allowing IT Managers to monitor  as many parameters and metrics as required, ensuring comprehensive visibility into their IT ecosystems. The benefits of such a simple and clear approach become evident also when compared to intricate and potentially expensive models that utilize license Points. Point-based models often employ multipliers that significantly increase the points consumption associated with specific monitoring capabilities, leading to high charges for monitoring technology-specific metrics.

Host-based licensing approach offers budget predictability, reducing confusion and costs due to service-based and points-based models. However, in very rare scenarios where an exceptionally large number of devices necessitate only basic status checks, per Host licensing may prove excessive.

i-Vertix all-in-one IT Monitoring offers a game-changing licensing model, providing you with the flexibility to choose what suits your (or your customers’) requirements best.

We give you the freedom to opt for either per Host or per Service licensing, tailoring the approach to your specific needs.