How software licenses are distributed
License distribution
Software licenses are distributed in 2 different ways:
- licenses available for multiple users on a common server
- active licenses on each user's computer
In addition, you can combine the two previous licensing methods. In fact, for example, you can activate a license on a single computer and activate the rest on a common license server.
Licenses activated on each user's computer (nodelocked)
In the case of licenses activated directly on the user computer it is important to know that:
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the presence of a license server administrator is not necessary: in fact, each user can independently manage the license server installed on his computer
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management of license access rights is not required: each user activates only the licenses they need. In addition, the licenses are activated separately on the users' individual computers, therefore no access rights need to be managed
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if a user's license were activated on a laptop, it would not even be necessary to borrow licenses or make a VPN connection
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however, each user has access only to the licenses installed on his computer. If it is necessary to use a license installed on another computer, a license installed directly on the new station must be used. Otherwise it will be necessary to deactivate the licenses on the first computer, reactivate them on the second with consequent waste of time. For this reason, in fact, by analyzing the use and exploitation of nodelocked licenses we obtain rather low data.
To learn more about how to monitor the consumption and the real exploitation of nodelocked licenses I recommend our new Insight software.
Licenses activated on a common server (floating - license server)
To manage licenses through a license server it is good to know that:
- the presence of a person in charge of maintaining the server and managing the use of licenses is required
- the server administrator can (and must) control the access and configurations of the license server. The licenses can be distributed, in fact, through a series of precise company policies
- the licenses can also be used off-site, in this case the user must borrow a license from the license server or use a VPN connection to it
- in this case there is a high rate of use of the licenses: in fact in the case of floating licezne, these are available for multiple users. Each license is released by the server only when needed. When a user no longer needs a license, he can close the application he was using and the license becomes available to another user. In this case, therefore, the passage of licenses between users is rather simple.