L I C E N S I N G
TMR : The Solution for Fail-Proof Licensing Setups
Wibu-Systems has been pioneering software protection , licensing , and security technology for more than three decades . The company has made a mark with its user-centric philosophy and its dedication to always listening to its clients ’ specific needs , and it has been a trailblazer especially in the ability to license individual software functions .
Why license software ? Licenses are used to protect the intellectual property of the developers and to make sure that the protected software runs exactly as it should . This would make it a worst-case scenario if a license server broke down , which can bring entire production lines to a standstill . It is in response to the call for fail-proof , high-availability licensing environments that Wibu-Systems has designed CodeMeter TMR .
TMR stands for “ Triple Mode Redundancy “ and combines the concept of fail-proof license availability ( 2-out-of-3 ) with field-tested datacenter technology . A cluster of five servers , two of which working as load balancers and three as license servers , forms a combined system . As long as two of the three license servers are available , the entire licensing setup will work – reliably .
CodeMeter TMR was made for the following use cases :
1 . Manufacturing : In automated production lines where a lost license server would mean downtime and considerable lost revenue .
2 . Mission-critical applications : For software in e . g ., healthcare , finance , or infrastructure management that depends on the high availability of the license servers .
3 . Global distribution : For companies that operate across geographies and need consistent licensing , even if a local failure happens .
The cleverly tiered and coordinated interaction between CodeMeter and CodeMeter License Central in a TMR Setup means effective license availability , complete license monitoring and efficient load balancing .
1 . License availability : When a server breaks down or needs to be serviced , the system will keep working ( redundant infrastructure ). If one license fails , the ISV can reissue it with a workflow integrated into Code- Meter License Central and get everything synchronized properly .
2 . License monitoring : All paid licenses are always available ( as licenses linked across the shared servers ). License protection is ensured throughout without any additional licenses , rights , or entitlements having to be issued to users in the field . This gives the vendor complete control over the type and limits of their licenses .
The 2-out-of-3 principle A TMR Setup is needed to make all this possible . The TMR Setup includes five servers that are usually run as virtual machines . Two of them act as the interface to the user clients ( here called TMR Servers ). The other three work as Backend Servers that receive the license queries from the user clients .
The TMR Setup has a single virtual IP address in the network . Over that address , all queries are routed to the TMR Server that is active at the time . If that one cannot be reached , the other TMR Server steps into the breach , switching from standby to active . The switchover works according to the standard criteria : If the active TMR Server cannot be reached , the standby server notifies the infrastructure that it wants to receive all packages sent to the virtual IP address and seamlessly slots into the role of the active server . The formerly active server can return to being the standby server as soon as it is reachable again .
This is done by a Keepalived daemon installed and working on both TMR Servers . Switching the status is always possible since the current state of the active server is always synchronized . All active data is replicated .
Working behind the TMR Servers , three Code- Meter Backend Servers are organized as Code- Meter network servers on either Linux or Windows . They act as the recipients of the instructions passed through to them by the TMR servers .
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