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 Configuration Server is forwarded to the Management and Control Server as it is received.
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 (for example, Terminal Viewers), then only the first client downloaded will consume a license; the additional clients will not consume any licenses. However, if a user employs a separate login ID for each client downloaded, then each client will consume 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 will recover the license after a specified time period has elapsed (1 hour, by default).
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The time period for recovering a client license is determined by multiplying the Heartbeat Period times the Recover Count. For example, if the Hearbeat Period is 600 seconds and the Recover Count is 6, MCS will attempt 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.