This Article Describes Cloud-Based License Management and in particular several problems solved by this approach.
Traditional floating licensing requires a license server installation on the end customer’s network. Although this deployment strategy is still the most common, you can improve the situation by moving the license servers into the cloud. Let’s look at the issues where Cloud-Based License Management can be of some considerable help.
The crux of the matter is that when you deliver licenses to your customer, you lose control. When you manage your customer’s licenses in the cloud, then you retain control. It’s that simple.
Some of the advantages of delivering licenses in the cloud are…
Customer Preference – Some customers don’t want to set up a license server. They feel this is the vendor’s responsibility. Most small customers don’t have in-house IT support. Licensing in the cloud eliminates the need to install and maintain the license server locally.
Reduce Support Time – Installing a license server can sometimes cause problems. Licensing in the cloud eliminates this task altogether.
Instant Revenue – The publisher can recognize revenue immediately. No more waiting around for the customer to track down the hostid of the server.
Use Anywhere – Your customer can run your software anywhere: on virtual machines, in classrooms, labs, at off-site training, and at trade shows, etc.
License Rehosting – Traditional floating licensing makes it difficult to securely rehost a customer’s license server when it fails or when it is decommissioned. This is not an issue with licensing in the cloud.
Suspend/Reinstate Licenses – Traditional floating licensing also made it difficult to terminate or suspend licenses. With the license server in the cloud, you can easily deal with non-payment or lapsed subscriptions.
Modify license inventories – With cloud-based license management, it is easy to change license counts up or down, and handle version upgrades.
Usage-based licensing – Pricing software based on usage relies on accurate records. In traditional license server deployments, license usage data is collected at the customer site, making it difficult to collect. With cloud-based license management, the report log containing the usage data is on the cloud, not at your customer’s facility.
Always up-to-date – Your cloud-licensed customers take advantage of upgrades to the server software immediately when released. Backward compatibility of the client-side ensures this.
Failover Servers – Maximize license server up-time with automatic failover server setup, at multiple datacenters.