Containers Licensing

In this document, when we refer to "you", we mean the Entrust customer ("Customer") who has purchased one or more nShield Containers licenses; or an individual authorized by Customer to access components, features or functions of nShield Containers ("Users"). Customer may also grant access to Users who are employees of external contractors, but only to the extent that such Users are using nShield Containers on Customer’s behalf in the operation or management of the Customer’s own business. Customer is responsible for all of its Users.

nShield Containers is:

To use nShield Containers, you must have at least one supported nShield network-attached HSM and nShield Security World client software and Docker must be installed.

Your permitted number of containers will be dictated by the number of HSM client licenses you have purchased for each of your HSMs. nShield Containers uses a weighting factor for calculating the number of HSM client licenses required based on the maximum number of running hardserver containers to be deployed.

You may not alter your nShield Containers license, nor may you circumvent or attempt to circumvent the license limits.

For each network-attached HSM that you have purchased and want to use with nShield Containers, you must have an nShield Containers license and at least one available HSM client license (each purchased HSM includes three free HSM client licenses). You can also purchase a container client license multiplier (“license multiplier”) for an HSM to increase the number of permitted hardserver container connections by ten per HSM client license. Each license multiplier applies to a single HSM only and applies to all HSM client licenses on that HSM.

For example, an HSM with an nShield Containers license, three available HSM client licenses, and a license multiplier could connect to up to 30 hardserver containers. If you purchased a further two HSM client licenses for the HSM later, you would be able to connect to up to 50 hardserver containers.

If you do not purchase a license multiplier, you can only connect to one hardserver container per available HSM client license.

To check your client license usage, and to interpret the stattree client counts and the ClientLicenseLimitExceeded error that is returned when a container is refused, see Container client licensing.

Regular hardserver connections still require one HSM client license per connection. You cannot use the same HSM client license for both a regular hardserver connection and a hardserver container connection.

The chart below provides examples of combinations of the maximum number of regular and hardserver container connections to the HSM for 3 HSM client licenses with one license multiplier.

You are strongly encouraged to keep your nShield Containers up to date with our latest product release.

The following are not included in your nShield Containers license and are sold separately (i.e., they would need to be covered in your Order):

You are expected to keep reasonable records of the number of hardserver containers you have connected to your licensed network-attached HSMs and the number of application containers that you have run. Any increases in such numbers shall also be tracked in order to ensure that the requisite number of client licenses are in place.