Switch between PAYG and BYOS

This page explains how to switch between pay-as-you-go (PAYG) and bring-your-own-subscription (BYOS) billing models for the following Linux operating systems:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
• RHEL for SAP
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
• SLES for SAP

For switching Windows Server from bring-your-own-license (BYOL) to PAYG, see Switch Windows Server from BYOL to PAYG . For details on license codes and how to determine allowed license modifications, see License changes and restrictions .

Before you begin

• If you haven't already, set up authentication . Authentication verifies your identity for access to Google Cloud services and APIs. To run code or samples from a local development environment, you can authenticate to Compute Engine by selecting one of the following options:

  Select the tab for how you plan to use the samples on this page:

  Console

  When you use the Google Cloud console to access Google Cloud services and APIs, you don't need to set up authentication.

  gcloud

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI. After installation, initialize the Google Cloud CLI by running the following command:

     gcloud  
     init

     If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity .

  2. Set a default region and zone .

Prepare to update a disk's license

To update the disk's license while the disk is attached to a running instance, first either stop the instance or detach the disk.

• Stop the instance . Temporarily shuts down the instance before updating the disk's license.
• Detach the disk . This detaches the disk from the instance before updating the disk's license.

Change a BYOS license to a PAYG license

To replace a BYOS license with a PAYG license, use the Google Cloud CLI or the Compute Engine API.

gcloud compute disks update DISK_NAME 
\
    --replace-license= PREVIOUS_LICENSE 
, NEW_LICENSE 

PATCH https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ PROJECT 
/zones/ ZONE 
/disks/ DISK_NAME 
?paths=licenses --data '{"name":" DISK_NAME 
", "licenses":["https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/ NEW_LICENSE 
"]}'

Validate the license change

To validate that your license has been changed on the boot disk, use the following procedure:

1. Get information about the boot disk by running the gcloud compute disks describe command :

   gcloud compute disks describe DISK_NAME 
   \
       --zone= ZONE 
   \
       --format="value(licenses)"

   Replace the following:

   • DISK_NAME : the name of the boot disk to validate the license of
   • ZONE : the zone containing the boot disk to validate the license of

2. Verify that the output is similar to the following:

   https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/rhel-cloud/global/licenses/rhel-10-server