VOV: How does Runtime licensing work?
Runtime supports two kinds of licensing:
- Floating licenses provided by the Reprise License Manager (RLM), which is similar to FLEXlm.
- Runtime keyfile licenses, which are node-locked and made for a specific hostid, Runtime product and port number.
For the Reprise License Manager, we make the license file with the host ID for one of your regular license hosts. For keyfile, we use the host ID of the machine where the vovserver runs.
The keyfile license is just a file and does not require any license server or daemon. It is read directly by the associated vovserver (for NetworkComputer, LicenseMonitor and LicenseAllocator) and enables a quantity of job slots for NC or users for LM. Each keyfile enables a quantity of a specific feature, but incremental licenses are possible by combining two or more keyfiles.
Our initial implementation of RLM was like most EDA tools, where vovserver and vovslave directly checked out licenses from RLM. This does not scale well for NC farms with thousands of machines. So in 2013, we introduced enterprise licensing based on RLM, where only vovserver checks out features and then grants them to the vovslaves, as needed.
This greatly reduces the number of TCP/IP connections and traffic. It also becomes practical and reliable for you to run an international system. For example, you can host all your RTDA licenses in San Jose, have the NC setups in Toronto and India, and check them out from San Jose.
You may also change the allocation among sites without needing new licenses.