Overview of Licensing

The licensing feature in Management & Control Services (MCS) reports current and historical usage of client applications, including summary statistics on maximum usage. MCS calculates usage by tracking the consumption of client licenses.

All licensing information for MCS is tracked through the primary MCS server (referred to as a standalone server, if you have only one). If you are using multiple MCS servers (a server cluster), all licensing information received by any secondary server is forwarded to the primary server as it is received.

If you use licensing in a clustered environment, the UpdateTimer service should be started on all servers in the cluster. For more information, see Starting and Stopping Services.

MCS uses the following rules to measure license usage:

• MCS meters licenses on a per-user basis, not on a per-client basis. Therefore, if a user employs a single MCS login ID to download multiple client applications, then only the first client downloaded consumes a license; the additional clients do not consume licenses. However, if a user employs a separate login ID for each client downloaded, then each client consumes a license.

• When a client connects, it consumes a license. When the client disconnects, it returns the license to MCS.

• When a client disconnects abnormally (for example, if the client's browser or operating system crashes), it does not return the license to MCS. MCS recovers the license after a specified time period has elapsed (1 hour, by default).

  The time period for recovering a client license is determined by multiplying the Heartbeat Period by the Recover Count, which are set on the Configure Licensing: Settings page. For example, if the Heartbeat Period is 600 seconds and the Recover Count is 6, MCS attempts to recover a client's license after 1 hour (600 seconds x 6 attempts).

• A connected client sends a license-usage message ("heartbeat") to MCS at regular intervals. If MCS does not receive a message from the client by the specified time period (1 hour, by default), then MCS recovers the client's license.

	Configuring Licensing
	Installing a License Certificate
	Assigning Permissions to a License Certificate
	Viewing Client License Usage
	Starting and Stopping Services