studio that owns a number of floating network licenses, stored on a license server. The studio’ s architects have to work in the studio, from home, and on building sites, but they need full access to their software. VPN connections might not always be possible when they are in their home office or out and about in the field.
The solution is to borrow licenses from the license server and transfer them into a local CmContainer on the architect’ s computer. The license is flagged as active on the server, and over-use is prevented. Architects can then work offline on their computers even with an unstable or without any VPN connection at all.
Server
Software
This approach represents a type of local caching of licenses. As developer, you decide whether this feature is allowed and for how long the user can borrow the licenses. You can integrate the borrow feature intelligently in your software to keep it as transparent as possible as a background process. Your users can also return licenses early when they do not need them anymore.
The checkout system Everybody has been there: You wait in queue at the supermarket, and then there is a problem with the checkout system. The queue gets longer and longer, and people are getting more and more impatient. A high availability strategy is the ace in the hole for such situations.
The solution uses two license servers. The first contains all licenses as floating network licenses. The second contains the same licenses, but with a unit counter. The software checks whether the first server is available and uses the licenses from there. If all licenses are in use, an error is returned, because all licensed checkout systems are already active. The backup server comes into play only if the first server is not available. The software counts down the unit counter with minute-by-minute precision, allowing you to check the usage of your backup server and identify any potential misuse. This solution is called hot standby. The first server can also be combined with local caching.
Main Server
Hot Standby
Checkout System
The holiday season In the run-up to the holidays, many supermarkets would love to have more checkouts open that they might have licenses for. It is the busiest period of the year by far. The supermarket would be ready to pay for these additional licenses, as long as it means fewer people having to queue at the checkout.
The solution is not unlike a hot-standby option, and it is called overflow licensing. Again, a second license with a unit counter is used. By contrast to the standby approach, this license is also used when all other licenses are in use. This gives the operator additional licenses to buffer any peaks in demand. Their use is recorded to the minute to ensure precise and accurate billing. Combined with a hotstandby solution, the entire setup needs four categories: Normal licenses, overflow licenses, backup licenses, and overflow backup licenses.
Local Server
Software
License Central
The carmaker With factories spreading around the globe, licenses should be available 24 / 7. There are several ways of doing so: One strategy would be to distribute the licenses across local license servers, which keep the licenses directly available at each site. With CodeMeter License Central, you can allow the user to move licenses dynamically from one server to the next. Any licenses that are not currently needed can be shifted back into the cloud and activated at some other factory that needs them – and all of this without any manual support efforts.
An alternative strategy would be to install a centralized license server, which can be coupled with local caching and a hot-standby solution. A third option would use three license servers and a manual mechanism in the software that only starts up if two of the three servers are available and the required licenses are not used elsewhere. This Triple Mode Redundancy( TMR) solution lets you choose which rules you want to enforce. As a minimum, two servers have to be available and the active licenses have to be consistent. As a solution, it is ideally suited to permanent licenses.
Server 1
Server 2
Software
Server 3
TMR
Software about to retire All software has its unique lifecycle, and every software will get to a point after which you would not sell or support it anymore. However, legal requirements might force you to provide your clients with licenses even after that point. This will not only mean the added effort of a highly manual process. Keeping an outdated licensing system running might also incur extra maintenance and licensing fees. Faced with these costs, many companies prefer to switch their older software to an unprotected version. But even this can mean high costs for implementation and testing. Not so with CodeMeter: A Protection Only License can be created at any point with an unbound general license. This creates a freely installable version of the software without any additional work. And even better: You get to keep your protections against reverse engineering.
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