L I C E N S I N G
Licenses for Offline Devices
Industry 4.0, IoT, IIoT, SaaS, Azure, and AWS: We are living in a world of devices that are always online and communicating with
each other in the cloud. This is definitely true for office and home electronics, but it is only slowly picking up in the industrial
realm. The makers of revolutionary smart controllers and devices who want to find ways to monetize their software face an uphill
challenge: How to roll out licenses and license updates to offline devices. CodeMeter offers not one, but several ways to do so.
Not entirely offline
The 1996 blockbuster “Independence Day” in-
cluded the iconic line: “Mr. President, that is
not entirely accurate.” Another thing that is
not entirely accurate is the belief that certain
devices are completely offline and cut off from
the outside world. With this in mind, let us
consider how CodeMeter licenses are allocated.
Whenever any message is shared, the transfer
can occur in either of two ways: Push or pull.
Push messages are sent from a central server
to a local device; the server decides when to
initiate the transfer and calls a service that
is running permanently on the target device,
not unlike the webservers that run on such
devices for configuration purposes. However,
many companies keep their devices seemingly
offline by blocking this access route – and
that is why CodeMeter does not include a
standard push implementation.
The alternative option for push messages
is that the target device has a special client
software installed that establishes the
10
connection with the server in the cloud and
logs on in order to receive the push messages.
The server can then use the opened channel,
and the target device receives the messages.
This method again requires a permanent Inter-
net connection and a permanently active client.
This is the method used e.g. by iPhones: The
operating system provides the client and push
message server as ready-made infrastructure,
which means that only a connection needs
to be kept open – which, however, is again a
problem for many industrial users.
Pull messages are received by the client on the
device regularly checking in with the server
whether there are any new messages. The
connection is outbound, with dedicated and
known data packages sent to a dedicated
server. The answer is verified by the client
before it is used, which keeps the security risk
down. In some projects, this option is available,
which is why Wibu-Systems supports it with the
Software Activation Wizard (as the client) and
CodeMeter License Central. The client does not
even have to run permanently. In most cases,
License
Central
Firewall
Device
Device
Device
it is run automatically at regular intervals, e.g.
once per day (Cron-Job); a manual launch can
also be required for special cases.