Licensing and Brain deployment overview
How licensing works for Nutanix Brains and an overview of the Nutanix Brain deployment process.
Licensing Overview
Appliance code has been encrypted to protect Vectra’s intellectual property and a license is required to enable successful decryption of the file system and complete deployment. The licensing for Vectra NDR (formerly Detect for Network) running on Nutanix Brains also governs the ability of the system to create Detections.
Please Note:
After deployment, if your Vectra NDR license expires, Detection algorithms will cease operation until a valid license is applied. Recall and Stream operation are unaffected if your Vectra NDR license expires and your Recall and/or Stream license is valid.
Licensing Enforcement
Vectra NDR (Detect for Network) supports licensing functionality regardless of the type of deployment (physical appliance, cloud IaaS, Nutanix, etc). All versions will be able to see license status and enable requests for and application of licenses.
Enforcement of NDR licensing is only enabled on Nutanix and VMware Brains. Any other Brain type does NOT currently have licensing for NDR enforced. Vectra does plan to add licensing enforcement for other Brain types in the future.
It is recommended that all customers work with their account teams to ensure their licensing is up to date. Please refer to the following table for additional detail:
Product
Deployment Type
License Enforcement
NDR (Detect for Network)
Nutanix Brain VMware Brain
Algorithms stop producing Detections when expired.
NDR (Detect for Network)
Physical or Cloud Brains
Not currently enforced. Planned for future (timing TBD).
Other Vectra products are also licensed but enforcement of the license is a matter of contract compliance between sales teams and customers or partners.
Deployment Overview
Scripted deployment of a Brain appliance in Nutanix environments requires Prism Central and v3 APIs. Prism Element is not supported. Vectra provides a .zip archive on the Vectra Support Portal that contains the Nutanix Brain .ova image along with a python script that performs the deployment using Prism Central API calls. For customers who wish to deploy manually instead of using the python script, alternate deployment instructions are also provided.
The main steps for the deployment are summarized below. For additional detail see Brain Deployment in Nutanix.
Download Nutanix Brain Image and Deployment Script
Download Nutanix Brain appliance image from https://support.vectra.ai/vectra/additional-resources and upload the Brain image to your Prism Central OVA store.
You must be logged into your Vectra support account, to see the download option.
Unzip the file to access the OVA and Python deployment script.
Deploy the OVA in Nutanix and Power It On
Upload the OVA image to Prism Central.
Deploy the OVA in Nutanix and power on the appliance using one of the below methods.
For either method below, please continue reading for additional details and requirements.
License the Brain
Browse to the IP assigned to the Brain’s management interface to see the initial boot status messages. The status message screen will update but a manual refresh is required to display any new information.
When you are able to see the System Setup and Provisioning screen, enter proxy information if required for your environment and then enter the License configuration screen.
Copy the licensing request code from the Vectra UI.
Back on the Vectra customer portal, paste the license request code into the Licensing Request form in the Enter Authorization Code box available at https://support.vectra.ai/vectra/additional-resources.
Copy the license once generated and paste it into the Vectra UI Licensing Information box.
Please Note:
If your Brain deployment will not be online (connected to Vectra’s provisioner/updater system, this is only supported for Quadrant UX deployments), check the Offline box to enable an offline deployment. This means all licensing functions will be done manually offline.
If the Offline box is not checked prior to hitting the Save button, the deployment will fail and will need to be started over with a fresh deployment of the OVF template.
Offline updates mode is automatically enabled when selecting the offline deployment mode.
Nutanix Brains deployed in offline mode can never be updated online.
Click Save on the licensing configuration screen.
Complete Provisioning
After the license is validated, the file system will be decrypted, a performance test will be run, the Brain will reboot, and the Brain will reach out to the Vectra provisioning server and complete provisioning (if the deployment is in online mode).
Offline Brains follow a similar process but do not need to communicate with the provisioning server and can validate the license locally.
Finally, a success message will be presented with a button to redirect to the main UI login screen.
For RUX deployments, please see the deployment process in the Vectra Respond UX Deployment Guide.
Please Note:
When doing a RUX deployment, you should NOT login and configure anything in the Quadrant UX (which would be available at this point) before Vectra connects your Brain to the Vectra cloud. Once the Brain is connected to the Vectra Cloud, the UI for your deployment (Respond UX) will be served from Vectra's cloud and the local UI (Quadrant UX) will no longer be available.
For QUX deployments only:
Initial login credentials for the UI:
admin/changethispassword
Initial login credentials for the SSH access to the CLI:
vectra/changethispassword
You will be asked to change the password after the initial login.
Complete your configuration using instructions available in the Vectra Respond UX Deployment Guide or Vectra Quadrant UX Deployment Guide.
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