Before the subscription to Security Center expires, you must renew the subscription at the earliest opportunity. This ensures that Security Center continuously protects your assets and reduces intrusion and data leak risks. This topic describes how to renew the subscription to Security Center.
Expiration description
Renewal notification
Seven days before the subscription to Security Center expires, the system sends you renewal notifications by email, or internal message. If you do not renew your subscription before Security Center expires, Security Center no longer protects your assets after the expiration date.
Retention of data and configurations
After Security Center expires, Security Center enters a grace period that lasts seven days. During the grace period, Security Center retains all your configurations and data, including your asset groups, tags, quarantined files, vulnerability whitelists, and baseline check policies. If you renew the subscription within the grace period, you can continue to use the configurations and historical data of Security Center.
If you do not renew the subscription within the grace period, Security Center is released, and you can no longer view the configurations or historical data. The edition of Security Center is downgraded to Basic. After Security Center is released, you must purchase Security Center again before you can enable the required features to protect your assets. For more information, see Purchase Security Center.
Renewal methods and scenarios
After you purchase Security Center, you can renew the subscription to Security Center at any time.
Renewal method | Renewal type | Description | Scenario |
Manual renewal | Renewal by retaining existing specifications | You can retain the existing specifications of Security Center when you manually renew the subscription. | If you do not want to change the specifications of Security Center or use auto-renewal, you can use this method. |
Renewal by changing existing specifications | You can change the specifications of Security Center when you renew the subscription. The existing specifications are not affected within the current billing cycle. When the renewal order takes effect, the specifications are automatically changed. If you want to immediately change the specifications of Security Center, you can upgrade or downgrade Security Center. For more information, see Upgrade and downgrade Security Center. Important Before an existing renewal order takes effect, you cannot change the specifications of Security Center. | If you want to change the specifications during the validity period of the next renewal order and retain the existing specifications in the current order validity period, you can use this method. | |
Automatic renewal | Auto-renewal | After you enable auto-renewal, the system automatically renews Security Center before Security Center expires. Note
| If you want to use Security Center for a long period of time, we recommend that you use this method. This way, you do not need to manually renew Security Center each time Security Center expires. |
Manual renewal
Prerequisites
The value specified by the Protected Servers parameter is greater than or equal to the number of servers within your Alibaba Cloud account, and the value specified by the Cores parameter is greater than or equal to the number of your server cores. These conditions must be met when you purchase Security Center in full protection mode. If the preceding conditions are not met, you must upgrade specifications, release Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances, or remove servers from Security Center. This way, the purchased quotas can be bound to the remaining servers. For more information, see Upgrade and downgrade Security Center.
In partial protection mode, no conditions of the quota for protected servers or server cores exist. You can change the protection mode from full protection to partial protection.
Renewal by retaining existing specifications
Log on to the Security Center console.
On the Overview page, choose .
On the Standard Renewal tab, select a renewal duration, read and select Security Center Terms of Service, and then click Order Now.
Renewal by changing existing specifications
When you renew Security Center by changing existing specifications, make sure that the value of the Protected Servers parameter is no less than the quota that is bound to protected servers, or the value of the Cores parameter is no less than the quota that is consumed by the cores of protected servers. If you want to reduce the parameter values, make sure that the quotas for protected servers and server cores that you do not require are unbound. For more information, see Bind a quota to a server and unbind a quota from a server.
In full protection mode, the value of the Protected Servers parameter cannot be less than the number of your servers added to Security Center, and the value of the Cores parameter cannot be less than the number of your server cores. If you want to reduce the parameter values, before you renew Security Center by changing existing specifications, you must manually release the ECS instances and remove servers that you do not want to protect from Security Center. This way, you are not charged for the ECS instances and servers in the next billing cycle.
For more information about how to remove a server that is not deployed on Alibaba Cloud from Security Center, see Remove a server not deployed on Alibaba Cloud from Security Center.
For more information about how to release an ECS instance, see Release an instance.
Before an existing renewal order takes effect, you cannot change the specifications of Security Center.
Log on to the Security Center console.
On the Overview page, choose .
On the Upgrade/Downgrade Renewal tab, configure the Edition, Protected Servers, Cores, and Quantity parameters, enable value-added features, read and select Security Center Terms of Service, and then click Order Now.
If you change the specifications that are displayed on the Overview page, the data on the Overview page is not immediately changed. The data is changed in the next billing cycle. The specifications refer to Protected Assets, Purchased Quota, and Remaining Anti-ransomware Capacity.
You can view the start time and end time of the order and the new specifications. To view the information, perform the following steps: In the upper-right corner of the Security Center console, choose . On the Orders page, click the Commodity Orders tab. Find the order for the renewal and specifications change, and click Details in the Actions column to go to the Orders page.
Automatic renewal
When you purchase Security Center, you can select Monthly, 3-month, or 12-month in the Duration section to enable auto-renewal. If you do not select Auto-renewal when you purchase Security Center, perform the following steps to enable auto-renewal:
Log on to the Security Center console.
In the top navigation bar, choose .
On the Renewal page, click the Manual tab, find Security Center, and then click Enable Auto Renewal in the Actions column.
In the Enable Auto Renewal dialog box, specify an auto-renewal cycle and click Auto Renew.
ImportantAfter you enable auto-renewal, the system automatically deducts the renewal fees from your account balance nine days before Security Center expires. Make sure that you have a sufficient balance in your payment account.