How nodes are counted

Your node count is the number of nodes in your inventory. Your license limits you to a certain number of active nodes before you hit your bursting limit. If you hit your bursting limit on four days during a month, you must purchase a license for more nodes or remove some nodes from your inventory.

Note: Node in this context includes agent nodes, agentless nodes, masters, compilers, nodes running in noop mode, and nodes that have been purged but had prior activity within the same calendar month.

Nodes included in the node count

The following nodes are included in your node count:
  • Nodes with a report in PuppetDB during the calendar month.
  • Nodes that have executed a Puppet run, task, or plan in the orchestrator, even if they do not have a report during the calendar month.

Nodes not included in the node count

The following nodes are not included in your node count:
  • Nodes that are in the inventory service but are not used with Puppet runs, tasks, or plans.
  • Nodes that have been purged and have no reports or activity within the calendar month.

Reaching the bursting limit

When you go above your node license's count limit, you enter what is called the bursting limit. The bursting limit lets you to exceed the number of nodes allowed under your license and enter a new threshold without extra charge. You are allowed to use your bursting limit on four consecutive or non-consecutive days per calendar month. Any higher usage beyond the four days will require you to either purge nodes or buy a license for more nodes.

The amount of time within your bursting limit does not matter for it to be counted as one day. For example, assuming you are licensed to use 1000 nodes and your bursting limit is 2000 nodes:
  • If you use 1200 nodes for two hours one day, you have three days left to use your bursting limit that month.
  • If you use 1900 nodes for 23 hours one day, you have three days left to use your bursting limit that month.
  • If you use 1500 nodes for one hour each day for four days, you must contact your Puppet representative to buy a license for more nodes or purge some of your nodes until the next calendar month.

When nodes are counted

PE tracks node counts daily from 12:00 midnight UTC to 12:00 midnight UTC.

The same time is used for the calendar month. For example, the month of September would include activity from 12:00 midnight UTC 01 September until 12:00 midnight UTC 01 October. After that point, the bursting limit restarts with a fresh four days in October.

Viewing your node count

View your daily node count in the console by navigating to the License page and scrolling to the Calendar month usage section. This section also contains information about your subscription expiration date and license warnings, such as your license being expired or out of compliance.

To see daily node usage information on the command line, use the Puppet orchestrator API: usage endpoint.

Removing nodes

If you have unused nodes cluttering your inventory and are concerned about reaching your limit, read about removing them in Adding and removing agent nodes and Adding and removing agentless nodes.