FlexNet Publisher

To maximize revenue and market penetration, software vendor and high-tech manufacturers need to offer software licensing models for their products that fit each customer’s needs. But you don’t want to have to go back to product development every time a new model is used.

FlexNet Publisher makes it easy for you to introduce products with a simple software licensing model, such as locked licensing, and then easily migrate to more sophisticated ones, such as floating licensing and product bundle licensing – all without any infrastructure upgrades.

You can select from over 1,000 license models for your products, including the popular floating, token, and named user models.

Other software licensing term options include:

• Expiration date: The license expiration date is specified in the certificate.
• Product version: The license version coincides with your product’s version.
• Date-based version: The license version is based on a date.
• Capacity: Dynamically adjust entitlement based on system performance parameters.
• Duplicate grouping (license sharing): Defines rules when duplicate requests from the same user, host, or display share one license.
• Linger: The license is held, rather than checked in, by the license server on behalf of the user after the product exits.
• Named hosts: The list of distinct host names is defined by the end-user license administrator.
• Network segments: Limits usage to hosts on a specific subnet.
• Overdraft: Specifies a number of additional licenses which your end user will be allowed to use, in addition to the licenses they have purchased.
• Package: Defines a set of products or features to be licensed as a single package.
• Package suite: Provides a way for users to share floating licenses among components of a package.
• Platforms: Allows you to restrict usage to particular hardware platforms.
• Start date: By default, a license is valid as soon as it is signed. However, if a start date is specified, the license is invalid until the start date.
• Supersede: Replaces previously issued license rights.
• Terminal server support: Allows users to run on Terminal Server Client machines or over Remote Desktop.
• Timeout: Causes the license to be returned to the general pool of available licenses if the product is not active for a specified number of seconds.
• Vendor defined: Used for vendor-defined entitlement, such as token-based.
• License sharing: License requests can be grouped so that multiple requests from the same entity share only one license.
• License pooling: The license is fulfilled from a prepaid number of license days for the usage period.
• Borrowing: Enables a user to temporarily obtain a license for a limited period of time while the user is disconnected from the local network.

Store software licensing agreement terms on computers and protect them from malicious attacks or unintended changes. Enable customers to manage licenses as needed without violating compliance. Turn off licenses to prevent abuse during deactivation, transfers, or upgrades.

With bare metal and the Universally Unique ID (UUID) binding, your enterprise customers are fully able to use the power of a vSphere environment while at the same time allowing you to feel confident that accidental or malicious overuse of served licenses is not happening. The Virtualization Add-On Option will also enable you to embrace the notion of virtual appliances which will allow you to reduce your costs to build and test applications, simplify product packaging, and provide your organization with the ability to continue to broadly address market demands in a cost effective manner.

With “single step” license activation, you are able to offer a hands free product activation experience to your end users. The ability to support partial upgrades, offline activations and hands free license activations will make it easier to sustain new customer acquisition and revenue growth.

FlexNet Publisher now enables you to provide your customers with an easy way to manage their usage of your applications.

It includes the new LMAdmin tool, which gives your customers the power to manage FlexNet Publisher license servers with a few simple mouse clicks and keyboard entries. LMAdmin has a rich graphical user interface that saves them time by making it easy to perform license management tasks, such as configuring the vendor daemon and license manager, stopping servers, and rereading license files. 

And since the administration of FlexNet Publisher servers is performed through a Web-based experience, LMAdmin simplifies the deployment of FlexNet Publisher servers for your customers while tightening security.

Please note: The LMAdmin tool provides a number of server administration improvements around usability and efficiency not found in lmgrd, FlexNet Publisher’s command line interface tool. However, if some of your customers prefer to manage licenses using lmgrd, it is still available with FlexNet Publisher.