> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs-xcor.paloaltonetworks.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Cortex XCOR licensing > Learn about licensing concepts and retention periods in Palo Alto Networks Cortex XCOR. To track your telemetry usage against your licensing dimensions, use **License Overview**. Palo Alto Networks Cortex XCOR 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 Cortex XCOR tenant. In the navigation menu, click ** Go to Admin** and then select ** 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 metrics 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 Optimization** 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 Palo Alto Networks. 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 This feature isn't available to all Palo Alto Networks Cortex XCOR users and might not be visible in your app. For information about enabling this feature in your environment, contact [Cortex XCOR Support](/support). To pay for telemetry data usage across the Cortex XCOR ecosystem, use *credits*. Credits are a flexible, fungible unit of currency that you can spend on any telemetry type. Instead of buying separate capacities for metrics, logs, and other telemetry, you purchase a pool of credits for a defined contract period. Spend those credits 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. * **Estimated Credit Runway**: The month and year when the remaining credit balance is forecast to reach zero, based on the previous 60 days of consumption. * **Credits cumulative trend**: A stacked line chart of cumulative credit usage by product over the life of the contract. Forecast lines extend each product's consumption trend through the contract end, based on the previous 60 days of consumption. * **Credit monthly consumption**: A bar chart of credits consumed per month. 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. The estimated runway and forecast lines are planning estimates and can vary as consumption changes. Forecasts require an active contract that covers the full 60-day lookback period and enough recent consumption data. If consumption is too low to calculate a meaningful runway date, the **Estimated Credit Runway** panel displays `N/A`. 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, 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 data point persisted to storage. Pricing varies by effective data point resolution, which is the average time between consecutive persisted data points of a time series. | | Matched datapoints | Billion datapoints | A data point matched for aggregation. One matched data point is incurred for each aggregation rule matched for each data point. | | Persisted histogram datapoint buckets | Billion buckets | A bucket within a histogram data point persisted to storage. One persisted histogram data point bucket is incurred for each non-zero bucket within a persisted histogram data point. | | Matched histogram datapoint buckets | Billion buckets | A bucket within a histogram data point matched for aggregation. One matched histogram data point bucket is incurred for each non-zero bucket within a matched histogram data point. | #### 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 Palo Alto Networks. 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 Cortex XCOR retains telemetry data. Contact [Cortex XCOR 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 Cortex XCOR can ingest. View retention policies for all of your telemetry data in the **Contract** tab of the **License Overview** page. ## Related topics - [Cortex XCOR-managed dashboards](/observe/dashboards/managed-dashboards.md) - [Cortex XCOR system limits](/administer/limits-licensing/limits.md) - [Licensing concepts](/administer/limits-licensing/concepts.md) - [Capacity licensing concepts](/administer/limits-licensing/concepts/capacity-licensing.md) - [Consumption licensing concepts](/administer/limits-licensing/concepts/consumption-licensing.md) This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.