Question 1

Is MinIO offering a hosted service or software?

Accepted Answer

MinIO sells a commercial license to its software-defined storage product which in turn comes with support delivered through SUBNET. MinIO does not operate a hosted object storage service. Deployments of MinIO are typically on-premises, private cloud instances. Customers provision their own hardware - architected for the specific use case they intend to support in production. Information on suggested hardware can be found here .

Question 2

What is MinIO's commitment to Open Source?

Accepted Answer

At MinIO, we firmly believe in the philosophy of Open Source and collaborative development. Our entire software stack is licensed under the Affero General Public License Version 3 (AGPLv3). To understand more, we recommend visiting our Compliance Page .

Question 3

Who actually owns and controls MinIO upstream?

Accepted Answer

MinIO is a commercial and Open Source licensed product developed by MinIO, Inc. MinIO trademarks and all the code developed by MinIO are fully owned and controlled by MinIO, Inc.

Question 4

What are the licensing options available for the MinIO object storage suite?

Accepted Answer

Commercial License
GNU AGPL v3 Open Source license

For more information please see our Compliance Page .

Question 5

Why should I choose a Commercial license when an Open Source license is available?

Accepted Answer

Any use of Open Source software comes with rights and obligations. As important as these are for a thriving community, there are some developers and/or organizations who don’t wish to use the software under the Open Source licensing terms and thus would prefer a commercial license. MinIO intends to support both perspectives with the Open Source licensing and a commercial license which provides exceptions to the obligations found in the Open Source licenses.

Open Source licensing is ideal for use cases where all obligations under “copyleft” licenses can be met. Where those obligations cannot be met, we suggest getting a commercial license.

The commercial MinIO license gives you the rights to create software on commercial terms without any Open Source license obligations. With the commercial license you also have access to the SUBNET support experience.

Question 6

Why should I pay for Open Source?

Accepted Answer

While Open Source provides a number of benefits, it also comes with certain restrictions.

As customers build commercial, proprietary applications on top of Open Source they need to be in compliance with the Open Source license restrictions.

Because MinIO Inc. is the copyright owner of MinIO’s software, only MinIO can grant the exception to the copyright restrictions associated with the Open Source licenses. By paying for a subscription, customers gain additional commercial benefits such as support and Open Source license exceptions.

Question 7

How should I choose between Open Source/Community, Standard and Enterprise?

Accepted Answer

We recommend Open Source/Community for deployments that are not a critical part of your infrastructure and/or are not yet in production.

We recommend the Standard plan for less critical instances such as archival use cases.

For mission-critical workloads that host sensitive data, span multiple deployments and require strict SLAs, we recommend Enterprise.

Question 8

Can I continue to use my commercial license after it has expired?

Accepted Answer

No. You are not permitted to use the commercial license if the subscription is not active. The rights to continue using MinIO software under the commercial license expire when the license term expires or the subscription is canceled.

Question 9

Do I need to worry about GNU AGPLv3 when using a commercially licensed version of MinIO?

Accepted Answer

No. When using the commercially licensed version of MinIO, we provide the entire MinIO object storage suite under the commercial license terms.

Question 10

I’m not sure if I am in compliance with the Open Source licensing scheme. I am confused with Open Source licensing. What should I do?

Accepted Answer

It is always recommended to contact a lawyer familiar with Open Source licenses for a full review of your project to determine whether you can fulfill all of the obligations of applicable Open Source licenses GNU AGPL v3 or buy a Commercial License or contact us to help us assist you with your development needs.

For more information visit our Compliance Page .

Question 11

Is support included with the subscription?

Accepted Answer

A MinIO subscription includes direct-to-engineering support delivered through SUBNET. Plans are chosen depending on the specific deployment needs. Available support levels include Standard and Enterprise.

Question 12

What forms of payment do you accept?

Accepted Answer

We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB Diners Club and debit cards. We also accept ACH and PayPal Express. For additional options, including wire transfers and purchase orders, please contact us at sales@min.io.

Question 13

How does MinIO calculate capacity? Is it based on used or total raw capacity?

Accepted Answer

MinIO charges only for the used capacity, i.e. the active data stored in the system. For example, if you have a MinIO cluster of 500TiB total capacity and you upload 100TiB worth of objects, you will be charged for the 100TiB objects - not for the entire 500TiB raw capacity.

Question 14

Do you charge for the redundant copies (erasure-code parity data)?

Accepted Answer

MinIO only charges for the actual amount of data stored in the system. This excludes any redundant data such as the erasure-code parity data. For example, If the erasure parity is set to 4 in MinIO, then 100TiB worth of objects will consume 134TiB of drive space including the parity data. You will be charged only for 100TiB data.

This provides our customers with no disincentives with regard to higher parity choices.

Question 15

How does MinIO calculate capacity charges when object versioning is enabled?

Accepted Answer

MinIO charges for all the object versions since all versions are actively served. For example, if you have four versions of an object, the size of the object includes all its versions. For example, if an object was modified four times (10MB, 11MB, 8MB, 15MB), the total capacity would be 44MB.

When versioning is enabled, object deletes are simply a marker on the objects. Actual space is still consumed and accounted for the pricing. To reclaim the space, you are required to explicitly delete all the object versions. You may also look at the ILM policy to automatically delete older versions.

Question 16

How does the ceiling function work?

Accepted Answer

MinIO charges based on capacity up to 5PiB on the Enterprise plan and 10PiB on the Standard plan. After this threshold, MinIO will turn off the capacity meter, creating a ceiling for software licensing costs to MinIO at $1.2M. This ceiling is calculated per site. If there are multiple sites, the ceiling would apply to each site.

For example, if a customer had three sites, Site A, Site B and Site C. Site A had 33PiB, Site B had 12PiB of data and Site C had 66PiB of data, the customer would pay $1.2M per site or $3.6M per year.

Question 17

What happens if I cancel my subscription?

Accepted Answer

Upon canceling your subscription, access will remain valid for a minimum period of three months. All account data, including issues, logs, and configurations will remain intact and the account will be in a suspended state should you wish to reactivate within the grace period.

Credit card details will be purged from the database immediately. Customers may request that we delete everything immediately.

Question 18

How do I upgrade my subscription plan?

Accepted Answer

You can upgrade your subscription plan anytime by clicking on the "Upgrade Plan" button on the subscription management page. If you are upgrading in the middle of your subscription period, you will be charged the appropriate prorated amount in the subsequent billing cycle.

Question 19

What happens to my billing when my capacity reduces?

Accepted Answer

Customers can reduce the amount of data under management and the next billing cycle will reflect the appropriate amount.

Question 20

How many "seats" or employees can access SUBNET through a subscription?

Accepted Answer

There is no limit to the number of employees that can access SUBNET and there are no additional charges for employees.

Question 21

Is there a limit on the number of MinIO deployments covered by a subscription?

Accepted Answer

There is no limit to the number of deployments across the organization. Even test & dev, CI/CD deployments are included in the same subscription. Capacity is the only unit of measurement for billing purposes.

Question 22

Can I only have a subscription for a subset of my MinIO deployments?

Accepted Answer

No. It is MinIO’s expectation that all capacity in the organization is accounted for in the subscription plan.

Question 23

Can I mix and match plans?

Accepted Answer

No. Given the features (such as Panic Button) and indemnification are tied to different subscription levels we are not able to mix and match plans.

Question 24

How do I manage my subscription?

Accepted Answer

MinIO subscriptions are managed through SUBNET.

SUBNET offers a centralized location to manage subscriptions, users, instances and issues. Additionally, SUBNET is a centralized location for the latest versions of the software, product documentation, security errata, and other operational benefits associated with your subscription level.

Question 25

What is SUBNET?

Accepted Answer

SUBNET is a modern support platform that replaces traditional ticketing systems with real-time collaboration between your infrastructure team and MinIO’s engineering team. SUBNET provides a secure communication channel to exchange logs and certified software binaries. As a result, through SUBNET, MinIO can guide its customers through critical bug fixes, security patches and other optimizations for their production instances. It is specifically designed for fast paced devops-centric infrastructure where issues need to be resolved in real time.

Question 26

How secure is SUBNET?

Accepted Answer

SUBNET security is audited by third parties for penetration testing and security best practices.

All credit card information and payment transactions are managed securely by our payments partners.

It should be noted that data hosted in a MinIO cluster is completely independent of SUBNET and remains completely private.

Question 27

How does a subscription address the security of my MinIO deployment?

Accepted Answer

MinIO is engaged with our customers, partners, key security stakeholders and the global open source community to identify security vulnerabilities.

When you are subscribed through SUBNET , MinIO knows the exact versions of the registered deployments. This enables us to identify specific vulnerabilities and to guide the customers to update immediately. When MinIO security experts identify security vulnerabilities, patches are security advisory notices are issued swiftly to all customers.

Unlike other open source companies that provide support for community developed code, MinIO is the primary developer behind the MinIO product stack. This enables us to address the critical vulnerabilities and issue a new release in a matter of hours.

Question 28

What data is stored in SUBNET?

Accepted Answer

SUBNET only hosts information related to support tickets, customer conversations, limited credit card information and user profiles.

Question 29

Can I subscribe without connecting my MinIO deployments to SUBNET?

Accepted Answer

Yes.

Question 30

What is the Panic button?

Accepted Answer

The Panic Button is a feature that will instantaneously alert every MinIO engineer across the globe to a customer’s production issue, mobilizing the entire organization to solve the problem. Panic Button issues automatically become the highest priority in SUBNET until resolved.

Question 31

What hardware do you recommend for MinIO?

Accepted Answer

For production workloads, MinIO has recommended capacity and performance configurations from Seagate, Dell, Cisco, Supermicro and Western Digital . Many of our customers also run on bare metal options like Packet. MinIO is happy to consult with your teams to determine the correct configuration for your use case. Reach out to us on sales@min.io or complete the Contact Us form at the bottom of the page.

Question 32

Where can I purchase the hardware?

Accepted Answer

MinIO is happy to put you in contact with our hardware partners or with select resellers with whom we have worked. Reach out to us on sales@min.io or complete the Contact Form at the bottom of the page.

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