How nodes are counted
Your node count is the number of nodes in your inventory. Your Puppet Enterprise (PE) 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.
noop mode, and purged
nodes that had prior activity within the relevant calendar month.Nodes included in the 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 the nodes do not have a report during the calendar month.
Nodes not included in the node count
- Nodes that are tracked 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 exceed your license's node count limit, you reach the bursting limit. The bursting limit is a margin that allows you to temporarily exceed the number of nodes allowed by your license, and enter a new threshold, without extra cost. You are allowed to reach the bursting limit on four consecutive or non-consecutive days per calendar month. If you reach the bursting limit on five or more days, you must either purge nodes or buy a license for more nodes.
- If you use 1200 nodes for two hours on one day, you have three days left on your monthly bursting limit.
- If you use 1900 nodes for 23 hours on one day, you have three days left on your monthly bursting limit.
- If you use 1500 nodes for one hour per day for four days within a single calendar month, you've exhausted your monthly bursting limit. You must either purge nodes (until the next calendar month starts) or permanently raise your node limit (by contacting your Puppet representative and buying a license for more nodes).
When nodes are counted
PE tracks daily node counts from 12:00 midnight UTC to 12:00 midnight UTC. Therefore, if your node count exceeds the bursting limit at 23:00 UTC, and remains in excess of the bursting limit until 1:00 UTC, this would count as two of the four days allowed for your monthly bursting limit.
The same time is used to calculate the duration of each calendar month. For example, the month of September includes activity from 12:00 midnight UTC on 01 September until 12:00 midnight UTC on 01 October. At 12:00 midnight UTC on the first day of the next month, the bursting limit allowance resets to four days. For example, if your node count exceeds the bursting limit at 22:00 UTC on 30 September, and remains in excess of the bursting limit until 1:00 UTC on 01 October, this counts as one day towards the September bursting limit allowance and one day towards the October bursting limit allowance.
Viewing your node count
To view your daily node count in the PE console, go 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 query daily node usage information on the command line, use the orchestrator API Usage endpoints.
Removing nodes
If you have unused nodes cluttering your inventory, and you are concerned about reaching your bursting limit, you can Remove agent nodes and Remove devices and agentless nodes from the inventory.