Shared License Activation | Strand NGS

Shared License Activation

Another mode of activating your product license is using a floating license. A floating license can be useful, when you would like to procure a few fixed number of licenses of the product, and share the license between multiple users (typically more than the number of licenses) in your organization. When you purchase a floating license, your local systems administrator will also need to install a floating license server, on a machine that is accessible over the network. The floating license server is based on the FLEXlm license software.

Once the floating license server is installed, your systems administrator will let you know the IP address or the hostname of the machine that hosts the license server. Now when you launch Strand NGS, choose the Shared license from server option in the License Activation dialog. In the text box that shows up, you can enter the IP address or hostname provided by your administrator. Usually the license server is run on port 27000. In that case, it suffices to enter just the host information. If however the license server is running on a port that is not between 27000 and 27009, you will need to explicitly enter the port information in the text box, for eg, 28000@abc.def.com.

If the application is able to successfully connect to the license server, it will try to check-out a single license from the server. If none of the licenses on the server are available, then you will be notified, and you will need to try again, after some other user stops using his license. If there is a license available, then the application will check-out a single license and you will be able to start using Strand NGS.

As you keep working on the product, the application and license server keep notifying each other, using what is called a heartbeat, about each other's state. If the license server goes down, or if the network connection between your machine and the server goes down, you will be prompted with a dialog indicating this. You will then have about 10 minutes, during which the application will try to re-establish the connection, and continue functioning normally. If it is unable to do so, the application will be terminated, and you will need to relaunch the application after the issue is sorted out with your administrator.

If you experience problems with activating your shared licenses of Strand NGS, please contact support with the topic Activation Failure.