> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.chronosphere.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Observability Platform licensing

To track your telemetry usage against your licensing dimensions, use
**License Overview**. Chronosphere provides this overview to monitor data usage
against your licensing dimensions. Use the overview charts to help identify usage
trends across data types and proactively manage data usage to avoid exceeding your
organization's licensing limits.

The **License Overview** is available in your Observability Platform tenant. In
the navigation menu, click **<Icon icon="shield-user" /> Go to Admin** and
then select **<span style={{display: 'inline-block', transform: 'scaleX(-1)'}}><Icon icon="scroll-text" className="fill-current" /></span> License Overview**.

The **License Overview** page consists of two main sections,
[**Consumption**](#consumption-tracking) and [**Contract**](#contract-details),
selectable by tab.

## Consumption tracking

The **Consumption** tab captures the current consumption rates across all license
dimensions, compared to your license limits. These statistics display across two
selectable tabs for **Snapshot** and overall **Trends**:

* **Snapshot** is an overview of your current license usage. When selected, this page
  displays each licensing statistic as a percentage of your contract limit, along
  with a graph for that statistic over a pre-selected time period.

* **Trends** explains how your license usage has changed over the selected time
  period, grouped and graphed by telemetry type.

License dimensions currently exceeding capacity highlight in red, and licenses close
to exceeding capacity are orange.

### Metrics consumption

Use the **License Overview** to track trace consumption against your metrics license
dimensions:

* On the **Snapshot** page, the **Metrics consumption** section displays aspects of
  processed, persisted, and matched metrics data, measured in bytes. Panels also
  display this information for histogram data. These panels include:

  * Current percentage gauges for persisted writes, matched writes, and persisted
    cardinality that display consumption versus capacity.
  * Seven-day trend lines that plot consumption against capacity so you can spot
    trends from week to week.

  For most users, the processed and persisted consumption rates are for the current
  month. If your organization uses consumption-based pricing, then the processed and
  persisted bytes are measured against your contract to date.

* On the **Trends** page, you can view metrics consumption trends in higher resolution.
  If your organization uses consumption-based pricing, click the link to view
  consumption trends in the [**Consumption**](/control/consumption/analyze) page.

### Tracing consumption

Use the **License Overview** to track trace consumption against your tracing license
dimensions:

* On the **Snapshot** page, the **Traces consumption** section displays aspects of
  processed and persisted tracing data, measured in bytes. These include:

  * Daily average rates per second
  * Month-to-date cumulative trends

  For most users, the processed and persisted consumption rates are for the current
  month. If your organization uses consumption-based pricing, then the processed and
  persisted bytes are measured against your contract to date.

  To help control costs and maximize the usefulness of your tracing data, click
  **Go to Trace Control Plane** to [sample your traces](/control/shaping/sample-traces).

* On the **Trends** page, you can view trace consumption trends in higher resolution.
  If your organization uses consumption-based pricing, click the link to view
  consumption trends in the [**Consumption**](/control/consumption/analyze) page.

### Logs consumption

Use the **License Overview** page to track log consumption against your logs license
dimensions:

* On the **Snapshot** page, the **Logging consumption** section displays the
  following panels and graphs:

  * Percentage of persisted writes and processed writes consumed against your full
    licensing contract.
  * Elapsed time against your full contract. Compare the percentage of persisted
    writes and processed writes consumption against the time elapsed to understand
    your true consumption rate.
  * Daily persisted and processed log data over the past 30 days.
  * Cumulative trend of persisted data and processed data against the license limit,
    over the life of your licensing contract.

  To view log license information, click **Go to Consumption**, which opens the
  [Consumption page](/control/consumption).

* On the **Trends** page, you can view log consumption trends in higher resolution.
  Trends display for the last seven days by default. The **Persisted** limit displays
  the number of logs that can persist per minute in your tenant. If your organization
  uses consumption-based pricing, click the link to view consumption trends in the
  [**Consumption**](/control/consumption/analyze) page.

### Events consumption

Use the **License Overview** to track events consumption against your change events
license dimensions:

* On the **Snapshot** page, the **Events consumption** graph for **Persisted Capacity**
  displays the percentage of events consumed against your events license capacity.

  To filter change events by different attributes, click **Go to Changes Explorer**
  to open the Changes Explorer page.

* On the **Trends** page, you can view event consumption trends in higher resolution.
  The **Persisted capacity** limit displays the number of events that can persist per
  minute in your tenant.

  This limit is enforced and can incur penalties if exceeded. In certain circumstances,
  this limit can exceed the license limit temporarily. The **Capacity limit** displays
  the number of events that can persist per minute, as defined by your the license in
  your contract with Chronosphere.

  The current consumption percentage displays a decimal ratio of persisted data
  against your per-minute license limit for the selected time period. This value is
  calculated by dividing the persisted events per minute by the number of events that
  can persist per minute, defined by the license limit. Use this information to
  understand the relationship between your persisted data consumption and the defined
  license limit.

### Credits consumption

<Note>
  This feature isn't available to all Chronosphere Observability Platform users and
  might not be visible in your app. For information about enabling this feature in your
  environment, contact [Chronosphere Support](/support).
</Note>

To pay for telemetry data usage across the Chronosphere ecosystem, use *credits*.
Credits are a flexible, fungible unit of currency that you can spend on any telemetry
type. Instead of buying specific capacities, such as for metrics or logs separately,
you purchase a total pool of credits over a defined contract period and choose how to
spend them across any product on the platform.

On the **Snapshot** page, the **Credit consumption** section includes:

* **Credit consumption (full contract)**: The percentage of total contracted credits
  consumed to date.
* **Elapsed time in contract**: The percentage of the contract period that has elapsed.
  Compare this against credit consumption to gauge spend rate.
* **Credits cumulative trend**: A stacked line chart of cumulative credit usage over
  the life of the contract.
* **Credit monthly consumption**: A bar chart of credits consumed per month.

<Note>
  The **Credit consumption** section displays for any of your telemetry types that use
  consumption pricing and credits. For any telemetry data that uses capacity pricing,
  or consumption pricing without credits where you purchase bytes, this section doesn't
  display. If a credit contract has expired or is no longer active, a message directs
  you to the [Consumption page](/control/consumption/analyze) instead.
</Note>

To view the total number of credits available in your license for the defined
contract period, click the **Contract** tab. The **Credits license** panel group
includes a pricing table that lists the products enabled in your tenant, the
resources included in your license, and the unit price for each resource.

The pricing table lists the following resources, grouped by product:

#### Metrics

| Resource                              | Unit                | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| ------------------------------------- | ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Persisted series                      | Million time series | A time series, defined as a combination of metric name and labels, that is persisted to storage. One persisted series is incurred for a time series if no identical time series have been persisted in the last 48 hours. Pricing varies by storage retention. |
| Persisted datapoints                  | Billion datapoints  | An individual, timestamped datapoint that is persisted to storage. Pricing varies by effective datapoint resolution, which is the average time between consecutive persisted datapoints of a time series.                                                      |
| Matched datapoints                    | Billion datapoints  | A datapoint matched for aggregation. One matched datapoint is incurred for each aggregation rule matched for each datapoint.                                                                                                                                   |
| Persisted histogram datapoint buckets | Billion buckets     | A bucket within a histogram datapoint that is persisted to storage. One persisted histogram datapoint bucket is incurred for each non-zero bucket within a persisted histogram datapoint.                                                                      |
| Matched histogram datapoint buckets   | Billion buckets     | A bucket within a histogram datapoint matched for aggregation. One matched histogram datapoint bucket is incurred for each non-zero bucket within a matched histogram datapoint.                                                                               |

#### Logs

| Resource        | Unit     | Description                                         |
| --------------- | -------- | --------------------------------------------------- |
| Persisted bytes | Gigabyte | Log bytes stored in the database.                   |
| Processed bytes | Gigabyte | Log bytes matched for transformation and reshaping. |

#### Traces

| Resource        | Unit     | Description                                           |
| --------------- | -------- | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| Persisted bytes | Gigabyte | Trace bytes stored in the database.                   |
| Processed bytes | Gigabyte | Trace bytes matched for transformation and reshaping. |

Because credits are fungible, your organization isn't locked into fixed capacities
for individual features. Spend your credit balance interchangeably across any of the
eligible resources as operational needs change. Usage can scale to accommodate
short-term demand without triggering budget controls unless your organization
configures them to do so.

To delegate spend across teams and ensure maximum value from your credit pool,
[create budgets](/control/consumption/budgeting) within consumption partitions.
Budgets let each team operate within a defined allocation while preserving overall
flexibility.

If your organization completely exhausts all credits before the end of the defined
contract period, further usage incurs additional charges per your contract terms. To
ensure that your organization doesn't spend credits before the end of the contract
period, use the included control capabilities to
[manage consumption](/control/consumption).

To analyze consumption across partitions to detect unwanted spikes and understand
what's driving growth, click **Go to Consumption**, which opens the
[Consumption page](/control/consumption/analyze).

## Contract details

The **Contract** tab is a view of your license limits, which are defined in your
contract with Chronosphere.

This tab displays your licenses by limit type, with graphs for your license versus
your capacity. This page also shows your ingestion limits and retention policies.

*Retention policies* define the amount of time Observability Platform retains
telemetry data. Contact [Chronosphere Support](/support) to configure the intervals
used for your system. These policies might be based on your contract or license.

*Ingestion limits* define the amount of raw data Observability Platform can ingest.

View retention policies for all of your telemetry data in the **Contract** tab of the
**License Overview** page.
