Licensing

You will need a new license file when installing (or updating to) GridGain Enterprise Edition (EE) or Ultimate Edition (UE). To get a new license file, contact your GridGain representative.

Specifying License

There are several ways you can specify a license file:

If you launch GridGain nodes by executing ignite.sh, you can replace the default license file in the GridGain installation directory with your license file. Place the license file in the $GRIDGAIN_HOME/gridgain-license.xml path.

You can also manually specify the path to your licence file in configuration. This url can be on a local machine, HTTP or FTP url. Specify the GridGainConfiguration.licenseUrl property in the node configuration file:

<bean class="org.apache.ignite.configuration.IgniteConfiguration">
    <property name="pluginConfigurations">
        <list>
            <bean class="org.gridgain.grid.configuration.GridGainConfiguration">
                <property name="licenseUrl" value="/my/directory/gridgain-license.xml"/>
            </bean>
        </list>
    </property>
</bean>

GridGainConfiguration ggCfg = new GridGainConfiguration();

ggCfg.setLicenseUrl("/my/directory/gridgain-license.xml");

IgniteConfiguration cfg = new IgniteConfiguration();

cfg.setPluginConfigurations(ggCfg);

Ignite ignite = Ignition.start(cfg);

This API is not presently available for C++. You can use XML configuration.

The license URL can be:

An absolute path on the file system;
A relative path, which is interpreted relative to the directory from where you launch the node.
A URL to a HTTP resource.

If you are running GridGain in kubernetes, you can also provide a license by using ConfigMap. Here is an example of how to do this:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: gridgain-license
  namespace: gridgain
data:
  gridgain-license.xml: |
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
    <gridgain-license version="2.1">
      <id>6952079f-b9c0-4cba-9825-4d7cd5f26828</id>
      <issue-date>07/27/2023</issue-date>
      <maintenance-time>0</maintenance-time>
      <user-org>user</user-org>
      <license-note>sample license</license-note>
      <type>ENT</type>
      <expire-date>08/11/2022</expire-date>
      <max-nodes>0</max-nodes>
      <max-cpus>0</max-cpus>
      <max-computers>0</max-computers>
      <grace-period>4320</grace-period>
      <max-uptime>0</max-uptime>
      <signature>302D0215001135F611860445D3223EB07EF54B42875EDFC1FE021402B33AE13BE4CB0B98965C5A722E17AC5C7B3B31</signature>
      <enabled-feature name="ultimate"/>
    </gridgain-license>

Switching Between GridGain Editions

The easiest way to transition between GridGain editions is to:

Get a new license from GridGain.
Download new binaries from the GridGain site and unzip them into a new directory.
Put your license file into the root folder of your new installation.

If you switch between GridGain editions, you must update your dependencies to match. See GridGain Editions and Java Dependencies.

GridGain Editions and Java Dependencies

When switching between GridGain Enterprise and Ultimate Editions, you need to update your dependencies in your .pom file.

Base Dependencies

All GridGain projects require the GridGain Maven repository. Add it to your .pom file:

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>GridGain External Repository</id>
        <url>https://www.gridgainsystems.com/nexus/content/repositories/external</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>

Then add the base ignite-core dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.gridgain</groupId>
    <artifactId>ignite-core</artifactId>
    <version>${gridgain.version}</version>
</dependency>

Set gridgain.version to the GridGain version you are using (8.9.35, for example).

Enterprise Edition Dependencies

GridGain Enterprise Edition requires the gridgain-core dependency in addition to the base dependencies:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.gridgain</groupId>
    <artifactId>gridgain-core</artifactId>
    <version>${gridgain.version}</version>
</dependency>

Where gridgain.version is 8.x.x.

Ultimate Edition Dependencies

GridGain Ultimate Edition requires the gridgain-ultimate dependency in addition to the Enterprise Edition dependencies:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.gridgain</groupId>
    <artifactId>gridgain-ultimate</artifactId>
    <version>${gridgain.version}</version>
</dependency>

Where gridgain.version is 8.x.x.

Updating GridGain License

When you need to provide a new license to a running cluster, be it due to an update to a different edition or the old license running out, you need to provide GridGain with a new license file.

Update with Downtime

If you can afford the cluster downtime, restart each node in cluster while updating the license file for them.

Update without Downtime

If downtime is not acceptable for the cluster, there are ways to update the license on the running cluster.

If you provide a URL to a license file, you can hotswap the license file on each node. The node will automatically reload the license file after the change. GridGain automatically handles having different licenses on the cluster and keeps the cluster running for the duration of the update.
If your cluster runs in Kubernetes and you use ConfigMap to specify the license file, change the license in ConfigMap. The nodes running in the cluster will automatically update the license once the new ConfigMap is provided.

Containers that use ConfigMap as a subPath will not receive the update. In this case, use the rolling update option.
If neither of the above options is possible, you can perform the update on a per-node basis with rolling restart of cluster nodes. Note that this will negatively affect performance for the duration of the update. For detailed instructions on performing rolling restart, see Performing a Rolling Restart section.

© 2026 GridGain Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Legal Notices. GridGain® is a registered trademark of GridGain Systems, Inc.
Apache, Apache Ignite, the Apache feather and the Apache Ignite logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation.

Last updated on Jul 14, 2026