Cloud Computing Highlights the Need for Increased Server Capacity

Last time, we talked about how an increasing number of software vendors are hosting license servers in the Cloud for their end customers and how client-side caching decreases the load on the license server.  Another requirement for license servers in the Cloud is the ability to serve more clients than a traditional on-premises license server.

To address this challenge RLM supports “disconnected use.”  While a normal RLM client application requires a socket to remain open to the license server for the lifetime of the license checkout, with “disconnected use” the socket is closed after the initial checkout, and only re-opened when the application performs a heartbeat to the license server.

Since RLM v10.0, “disconnected use” allows software vendors to initialize RLM in a way that sets communications with the license server to a “disconnected” mode.  Our internal testing indicates that a license server can support roughly 10 times the number clients using disconnected operation, as compared to the usual connected operation.  The limit with disconnected operation is generally reached when the server can no longer process heartbeats from all the clients in a timely manner.

For a more detailed technical description of this feature, including some performance guidelines, please refer to the RLM Reference Manual section entitled “Disconnected Operation.”