License Packages
By means of licensing, the scope of operation and functionality of Central ServerŪ is determined. Licenses are used in different realms within most of the Central ServerŪ web applications.
Caution
License packages are identified by its licensee - i.e. the tuple "Company / Licensee". This
implies that after the import of the first license package all following packages have to be issued to the same licensee.
License Pools
The licensing always requires a licensee owning the licenses or license packages. License packages issued to a licensee may be imported with the aid of the current web application.
Licenses are stored within license pools. Currently, three kinds of license pools exists: the free license pool, the System license pool and the Customer license pools. Licenses are granted in a per Customer basis; therefore own license pools exist for each Customer (tenant) as well as for the special System context (system license pool).
All licenses imported via license packages are initially stored within the free license pool. Subsequently, only System users may transfer licenses to the System license pool or to one of the Customer license pools; and after that, standard users may grant licenses of their Customers' license pools to selected entities (e.g. to Robots). This gradual licensing procedure results in a clear distinction between Customer licenses and System licenses.
Licenses are cumulative - i.e. newly imported licenses are always added to existing licenses.
Regarding license pools (except the free license pool), there is a difference between the total number of licenses, the number of already granted and the number of free licenses. Users may only grant free licenses contained in their Customers' license pools. If the number of licenses contained in a license pool and licenses already granted is equal, no more free licenses are available. In this case, users may revoke licenses from entities, or ask their System administrators to transfer new licenses from the free license pool to their Customer license pools.
Multiplicity
Each kind of license (see description below) specifies a multiplicity, describing how many licenses of the same type may be contained within a license pool or may be granted to an entity (e.g. a robot). For example: only one license per web application may be contained in a Customer license pool, because a web application may or may not be used by users of the respective Customer. The multiplicity of each license will be specified within the description of each license.
Expiration
Licenses may have an expiration date; after which the respective license is invalid and the assigned functionalities will be disabled. Beside time limited licenses the Central ServerŪ supports licenses never expiring.
Licenses
The Central ServerŪ supports different license types: Robot licenses, web application licenses etc.
Robot
At Robot-side there are license types as follows:
Robot License
This license type is used by Robots to start Workflow processing. If Robots are not licensed (as represented by the status Unlicensed shown in Control Center), they will not process Workflows. Via the Control Center's Robot Management, Robot licenses must be manually transferred from Customer pools to unlicensed Robots to activate them.
Multiplicity:
| per Customer license pool | per Robot |
| * | 1 |
This license type exists as of Control Center 3.0.
Secure Session License
This license type enables Robots to process parallel Workflows as hidden sessions (Secure Session mode). The number of Secure Session licenses granted to a robot specifies the number of hidden sessions the respective Robot processes; therefore each hidden session requires a separate Secure Session license.
This license type requires a robot already owning a robot license.
After the expiration of Secure Session licenses, the respective amount of running hidden sessions will be closed after the completion of the currently processed Schedule. Via the Control Center's Robot Management, Secure Session licenses must be manually transferred from Customer pools to selected Robots to activate hidden sessions.
Multiplicity:
| per Customer license pool | per Robot |
| * | * |
This license type exists as of Control Center 3.0.
Workflow Feature License
Only Robots owning specific Workflow feature licenses will process Workflows with special licensed features such as WebAutomation or ServiceCheck. Robots not owning a required feature license will not process such Workflows (Workflows will show the status _Execution Failure_), but will process schedules containing Workflows with licensed features. Via the Control Center's Robot Management, Workflow feature licenses must be manually transferred from Customer pools to selected Robots to activate the processing of Workflows with special licensed features.
Multiplicity:
| per Customer license pool | per Robot |
| * | 1 per feature |
This license type is new and exists as of Control Center 4.0.
Server
At server-side there are license types as follows:
Web Application License
This license type enables users of the respective Customer to start and use the respective web application. System users may grant this license type by transferring it from the System license pool to the respective Customer license pool. Within the navigation menu of each web application, users view icons of all web applications the respective Customer license pool contains licenses for.
Multiplicity:
| per Customer license pool |
| 1 per web application |
This license type is new and exists as of Control Center 4.0.
The following web applications are licensed.
- Control Center
- Reporting
- Report Automation
- Test Automation
- Alerting
Royalty-Free Web Applications
The following web applications are royalty-free.
- SystemAdministration (may be used by System users only)
- User Management
- Master Data
The left section of the Customers view shows the SystemAdministration's sub menus with the current view marked as selected. The center view gives an overview of all Central ServerŪ licenses and license pools.
Each column shows limited (see date in the column's title) as well as non-expiring ("Never" in the column's title) licenses of the respective entity.
Each row shows the licenses as contained in the respective license pool.
Each cell displays the total number of licenses next to the number of licenses already granted ("total/granted"). The difference between both values gives the number of free licenses ready to be granted. If there is no difference / both values are equal, no free licenses are available. A cell's tooltip provides all three values (total, granted, free).
System users may transfer licenses from the free license pool to the System license pool or Customer license pools and vice versa.
The row Free Licenses denotes the free license pool. This pool contains licenses, which may be transferred to the System license pool ("[System]") or Customer license pools.
The row Total denotes the total number (sum) of licenses of the respective type contained in all license pools.
To manage licenses of the same type between license pools, users may click at the expiration date of the respective license type.
To manage licenses of different types within the same license pool, users may click the name of the respective license pool ("[System]" or Customer name).
Menu
The License Management supports the following operations:
Refresh
This menu item is used to refresh the table of all licenses and license pools.
Import License Package
After receiving a license package, System users may import the licenses contained to the license management (i.e. to the free license pool). The license package is provided as a string. Clicking Import License opens a wizard guiding System users through the process of importing a new license package.
Expired Licenses
An expired license will not longer be displayed within a license pool. Clicking Expired Licenses opens a dialogue showing all expired licenses.