Making license management simpler
From 22nd February 2021 you will need to contact DeltaXML to obtain licenses, for renewal, moving a server, or your very first license, as we are replacing Flexnet Operation cloud tenant. Below we describe how that process will work, so you know what to expect, together with some insight to the technical details of our changes. A fully documented process will replace this content in the coming weeks.
Note: we will still process your renewals in the same way regarding billing and account management, we are only changing the way you manage your licenses.
Assisted license management
In the first instance please contact support@deltaxml.com or login to our technical support area:
https://deltaxml.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/2/user/login
Your email, or when raising a ticket through the technical support portal, should request a 1 hr slot to discuss your setup and architecture. We need to understand how you use servers for concurrent licenses, including redundancy options, or how to use hostids types that are needed in fixed-server license files.
We are more than happy to spend time on the phone or sharing your screen. During the session we will generate your license files for first time customers, or if you need renewals, send us your old license files. Once the license is complete we simply provide a download ZIP file for old or new releases.
Note: We will provide this service through our standard support hours: 09:00 - 17:00 Monday-Friday UK Time (excluding UK public holidays).
Concepts/definitions
Using either the new GUI replacing Flexnet Operation cloud tenant, or our powerful CLI tool, there are a number of terms of which you will need to be aware.
System
A computer (identified with a UUID system identifier) that corresponds to a a computer running our software directly, or a computer used as a concurrent server which supports licensing from network connected systems that will run our software. A system, when activated, has a license file containing a hostid that binds it to that system.
HostId
IP address or hostname, and for concurrent servers a Mac address, excluding: 127.0.0.1, ::1/128, localhost, 169.254.0.0/16, fe80::/10 addresses.
For more detailed information about how to determine you Server name or Host Id please read this article: Creating Systems - Host IDs, IP Address, Mac Address
or for license server Host Id read this article: Creating Systems - Host IDs, IP Address, Mac Address
Activation
The process of associating a system with the hostid so that a license file can be generated.
Deactivation
When a system is no longer running the software it is deactivated. Here you confirm the system is no longer being used and the license file is or will be removed. To move to a license or system between computers (say when upgrading hardware or changing to a new VM) you would deactivate and then activate with a different hostid.
System history
A log of the activations, deactivations and downloads for the system. Includes auditing information about the user or tool performing the operation, time and IP address.
Version and Date based licensing
The license we currently issue for our Java and self-hosted REST products includes a version number. For example, at the time writing the current release of XML Compare is 10.4 and if you examine your license files you should see that one component within those files licenses mentions says '10.4'. The next release of XML Compare is likely to be 10.5.0 or 11.0.0 and in order to deploy this you would have needed to download the new release and also obtain a new license file supporting the new version. So for each new release you would test or deploy there are two operations needed: (a) get the release and (b) get a new license.
There is however a simpler alternative to this: date based licensing. Your license file contains a date, which we will call your support date, rather than a version. Our releases then contain their release date rather than a version number and this is compared with the support date. More precisely, if you are using a bugfix release such as 10.5.6, it uses the release date for the major.minor version, such as 10.5.0, before any bug fixes were applied. Your support contract allows you to receive the new major.minor releases during the support period with any new features and enhacements that we provide.
Note: bugs that are reported to us are our responsibility to fix and will be provided even outside of the support period provided that we offered the major.minor version in that time.
What will these changes look like?
Suppose you have an annual XML Compare subscription, rather than seeing:
1 2 INCREMENT compare deltaxml 10.4 31-dec-2021 uncounted \ HOSTID=INTERNET=192.168.35.11 ...
There is now an encoded date '20211231' replacing the 10.4 version number and this is the support expiry date, the other date that appears in the example '31-dec-2021' is the date of the license expiry. For many subscription license customers these dates will be the same although they have slightly different semantics and due to the FNP technology used, textual representations.
1 2 INCREMENT compare deltaxml 20211231 31-dec-2021 uncounted \ HOSTID=INTERNET=192.168.35.11 ...