Understand MES product license management

During MES middleware startup

During startup, the MES middleware performs the following steps to acquire licenses:

1. When the middleware starts, it attempts to contact the License Server.

2. If the License Server is found, the middleware attempts to acquire an MES middleware license.

   • If a middleware license is not found, the middleware stops.

   • If a middleware license has been obtained, then the middleware attempts to acquire licenses for Operations, Performance, and Quality. If no such licenses are found, only the freely licensed features will be active.

   • If the License Server is in Grace Period, the middleware stops.

3. The middleware requests the License Server for an MES middleware count by node name.

4. The middleware requests all entity counts by a name built from the MES database server name and MES database name.

   Note: When entering the server name during MES middleware configuration, use either the host name or IP address. Be consistent in this when configuring MES middleware on different nodes, as the system will not know that a host name and IP address point to the same server. See Specifying the MES Production Database Connection String. If you enter localhost, it will be converted to the local server name when building the database connection string.

   For example, it might request 20 Operations entities, 10 Performance entities, 5 Quality entities, 35 Production entities, and 205 Storage entities (Inventory).

   Note that the name can be altered to remove any characters that are not allowed in the naming of Windows files and directories, since the License Server uses the name to create a directory on the server itself.

   • If any counts cannot be acquired, the middleware reports warnings but still starts.

   • If another MES middleware already has these licenses but by a different name, there will be an error and the middleware will not start.

   • If another MES middleware already has these licenses using the same name (that is, both are configured against the same database Server/database name), then the middleware will start with the same counts as the already running middleware.

5. If using MES Cloud integration, the MES Curation service checks if the local MES Middleware has acquired a cloud integration license.

6. If using Enterprise Integration, the Enterprise Integration service first attempts to acquire the professional feature and then the standard feature.

During Run Time

• During run time, the middleware validates its connection to the License Server every hour. If it fails to contact the License Server, warnings are logged but all calls will continue to be executed.

  Note: Do not attempt to restart the middleware without a connection to the License Server as the middleware will not start.

• If a license expires, the middleware will log a warning within one day of expiration and then every day for two weeks before no longer allowing calls to pass through.

• When a middleware shuts down, it releases the Middleware count feature. If it is the last middleware to shut down (that is, no other middleware features are in the acquired state), then the middleware also releases the Operations, Performance, Quality, Production, and Inventory features. This behavior is relevant only if the middleware is sharing licenses with other MES middleware instances. Note that sharing means that the various middleware instances are configured to use the same database server node and database.