Certificate License Activation Key Concepts
Certificate-based license model types include combinations of nodelocked or floating and counted or uncounted:
| • | A nodelocked uncounted license model enables a product to be used on a specific computer system, with or without terminal server privileges. The end user can open unlimited instances of the product, but only on the nodelocked machine. This license model requires a host ID that uniquely identifies the nodelocked machine. |
| • | A nodelocked counted license model allows a fixed number of licenses to be accessed over a network by a specified list of computer systems. The specific host IDs are provided by the customer and put in the license certificate. This model requires a license server system. |
| • | A floating counted license model requires a license server system and allows a maximum number of licenses to be used at any one time on a network. This model is also called networked or concurrent licensing. |
| • | With a floating uncounted license model, any number of product licenses are available for checkout from a license server system over a network. |
After a product purchase has been registered with FlexNet Operations as an entitlement, a customer can obtain a license for the product. The license enables use of some or all of the product’s capabilities, and contains information about the computers on which the software is to run, the expiration date, and the count of the entitlement’s total quantity that has been activated. Before the license can be generated, the entitlement must be deployed in FlexNet Operations.
Generating Certificate Licenses
After a customer receives an activation ID, it can be presented to a software publisher’s order entry department, which uses FlexNet Operations to generate the certificate-based license. The license is then emailed or delivered to the customer by other means.
A customer could also use the activation ID to log in to the End-User Portal, enabled by FlexNet Operations, and generate a license. Similarly, an end user who has purchased software from a reseller could either call in to the software publisher with a Web register key, or use the key to log in to the End-User Portal to generate a license.
Licenses are generated for one entitlement line item at a time. FlexNet Operations generates a fulfillment ID for each activation.