---
title: "Set up GEM | Grafana Enterprise Metrics documentation"
description: "Grafana Enterprise Metrics is available as a pre-compiled binary, a Docker image, as well as via common OS-specific packaging. For a list of available download options, refer to the downloads page."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. [Please view the current version](/docs/enterprise-metrics/latest/).

[Documentation](/docs/)![breadcrumb arrow](/static/assets/img/icons/grafana-icon-breadcrumb-arrow-gray.svg) [Grafana Enterprise Metrics Documentation](/docs/enterprise-metrics/v1.7.x/)![breadcrumb arrow](/static/assets/img/icons/grafana-icon-breadcrumb-arrow-gray.svg) Set up GEM

Enterprise [RSS](/docs/enterprise-metrics/v1.7.x/setup/index.xml)

Grafana Enterprise Metrics is available as a pre-compiled binary, a Docker image, as well as via common OS-specific packaging. For a list of available download options, refer to the [downloads page](../downloads/).

## Get a GEM license

A valid Grafana Enterprise Metrics license token is required to run GEM’s many added features. Without a valid license token, not all of GEM’s added features will run. However, GEM will still run with all of the functionality of an open-source Cortex binary.

If you already have a license for GEM:

1. From [https://grafana.com](/), select **Login**.
2. From the left-hand menu, select **Licenses** to download the license token.

If you do not have a license token to run GEM, [contact a Grafana Labs representative](/contact?about=grafana-metrics-enterprise).

### Choose a name for your GEM cluster

GEM licenses are issued on a per-cluster basis. Each cluster of GEM that you plan to deploy requires a unique license. When we issue a GEM license, we must have a unique cluster name with which to associate the license.

A cluster name must meet the following criteria:

- is 3 to 63 characters long
- contains lowercase letters, numbers, underscores (\_), or hyphens (-)
- begins with a letter or number
- ends with a letter or number

## Deploy your GEM cluster

After you have a Grafana GEM license with an associated cluster name, choose a deployment method to deploy your GEM cluster:

- [Deploy on Linux](linux/)
- [Deploy on Kubernetes](kubernetes/)

## Configure limits for production use

To set up your cluster with limits for production use after you have deployed a cluster, see the [GEM limits recommendations](limits/).