Warning – Bitdefender change in licensing rules partway thru license period

Bitdefender changed the number servers supported part way though the purchase period. I purchased a 3 year license during one of their special sales. The license chosen was for 10 units but the license stated that it provided for 4 servers. I recently had one of my linux workstations die and when I bought up a replacement, I found I now only have a license for 3 servers. After long discussions with tech support, they did verify that I had in fact I had 4 servers active and protected under the license but according to their current rules, only 3 servers are allowed. According to them, even though I had 4 active servers they would not allow that anymore. Appears as a strange form of bait and switch.

Comments

  • sorry, should have pointed out it was a gravityzone license

  • Gjoksi
    Gjoksi DEFENDER OF THE YEAR 2022 / DEFENDER OF THE MONTH mod

    Hello.
    Since you need help with business product, @Andrei_S Enterprise (who provides support for business products) could take a look here and help you with the issue.
    Regards.

  • Andrei_S Enterprise
    Andrei_S Enterprise Business Support Manager BD Staff

    Hello @Aero_Nextgen_verizon.net ,

    Since you already have a case with support, please share it in private with me so I can check what was done. This will provide me with more information about your license and what was investigated by my colleagues.

    Kind Regards,

    Andrei

  • Andrei_S Enterprise
    Andrei_S Enterprise Business Support Manager BD Staff

    Hello @Aero_Nextgen_verizon.net,

    Thank you for sharing the case.

    In the case of GravityZone Business Security license, servers should account for less than 30% of the total units. In your case to cover 4 servers (including Linux machines) you would require at least 11 seats.
    11 * 0.3= 3.3 which is rounded up resulting in 4 servers

    I understand that in the past you were able to cover 4 servers using 10 seats but this is an extraordinary situation which should not have happened if all 4 were Linux/windows server machines. It would have been interesting to know the root cause in that case because this is the only case reported with this behavior.

    One situation that would explain how it was possible to have 4 servers for 10 seats was if you had an Advanced Business Security license with 10 seats which allows up to 35% of the total units to be servers.
    10 * 0.35= 3.5

    The license calculation formula for the number of servers covered was like this all the time, there was no change that could have impacted you.

    Looking over the website calculator, it is showing that 10 seats covers 3 servers:

    I know you this might be disappointing to hear but this is the correct number of servers allocated for a 10 seat license.

    Kind Regards,

    Andrei

  • You seemed to have missed the point, I have 10 seats. I have never used 10 seats. The whole point of purchasing the 10 was that I got 4 servers. Yall can keep telling me your current rules but as you point out you gave me 4 servers when I bought the license and now have taken one away because it does not fit your current theory of servers. I have no clue how yall enabled it originally but it was clearly enabled. My trust in bitdefender has been lowered due to this issue! have a good day.