Evaluate Enterprise
The Enterprise binary includes a fourteen-day evaluation of its shipped Enterprise features, with no signup or credit card. Install a pinned public release, record its version and test against a disposable destination. Confluent Platform's own evaluation licence is a separate prerequisite.
Start with one representative topic, schema and application identity. Record the expected operations before backup, prove destination access is initially absent, restore, and check the results with independent clients. Keep bootstrap administration separate from the application under test.
Keep state through restarts
Use a durable writable trial-state directory for jobs and containers, and reuse it across restarts and upgrades. Do not use a disposable container filesystem as the evaluation clock. Preserve the backup storage separately so a new process can resume an interrupted operation.
The next Enterprise minor release adds the explicit activation and state controls below. They are not commands to run with Enterprise 0.7. The commercial portal is already live; authorization recovery remains under qualification.
export KAFKA_BACKUP_TRIAL_STATE_DIR=/path/to/durable/trial-state
kafka-backup license activate-trial --format json
kafka-backup license info --format json
Activation starts exactly fourteen 24-hour days. Help, version, licence inspection, file verification and paid licence installation do not activate an evaluation. Record the reported expiry and confirm it remains identical after a restart. Multiple local processes share a lock and publish trial state atomically. Multi-host deployments need filesystem locking that works across hosts or an issuer-dated signed evaluation.
For the upcoming Docker release, mount durable writable storage at /var/lib/kafka-backup. The accompanying Helm chart can retain a trial PVC on uninstall and reuse an existing claim on reinstall. Check the chart version before using trialPersistence.enabled or trialPersistence.existingClaim.
Corrupt state, significant clock rollback or an unwritable explicit directory disables trial entitlements with a diagnostic. The process does not silently choose a new directory. Offline trial state cannot prevent an administrator who controls the filesystem and clock from resetting it; integrity checks protect against accidental or casual edits.
Install a commercial licence
Purchase through enterprise.kafkabackup.com, then install the delivered file:
kafka-backup license verify --file license.key
kafka-backup license apply --file license.key
kafka-backup license info
An inline ENTERPRISE_LICENSE_KEY takes precedence over files. In the upcoming release, an invalid or missing explicitly configured licence fails rather than falling back to a trial. Unset an inline override before applying a replacement file. Keep customer-bearing licence files access controlled.
Runtime licence validation is offline. The commercial portal collects the contact and subscription details needed to issue and deliver a licence; it does not receive Kafka records or permission inventories. See licensing for discovery order and entitlements.
Finish with a recoverable result
Save the release version, redacted configuration, record counts, schema checks and allowed/denied access results. Keep private credentials and trial state outside shared reports. At the end, destroy disposable resources, independently verify absence and revoke fixture credentials. Retain the expiry record and redacted evidence if you continue with a paid licence.
The state and expiry recommendations were checked against the primary documentation for Keygen timed licences, offline cryptography, Docker volumes and Kubernetes CronJob concurrency.