Applies To
• Inventory for Windows 6.0, 6.1
• Notification Server 6.0
• Patch Management 6.1, 6.2
• Software Delivery
Question
How does Altiris licensing work for Notification Server based products?
Answer
Overview
This article discusses licensing for each of the Altiris Notification Server based solutions:
- How a license is consumed.
- What happens when the license count is exceeded.
- What happens when a time limited (demo/install) license expires.
- What happens when the Automatic Upgrade Protection (AUP) expires.
- How to recover a solution license (retirement vs. deletion).
- Anomalies in expected functionality.
Inventory Solution for Windows
- License consumption—A license is consumed after the Notification Server has received the first posted software inventory data from a managed computer. A license is not consumed from the existence of the inventory solution agent on a managed computer. A license is not consumed by the "basic inventory" function of the Altiris Agent.
- License count exceeded—Inventory from licensed nodes will continue to be processed. Incoming inventory data from unlicensed nodes is discarded.
- License expiration (only applicable to Trial or otherwise temporary licenses)—Agent rollouts will still occur without a problem. All new incoming inventory data is discarded. Inventory reports will throw a license error.
- AUP expiration—All functions will continue normally. However, if newer versions of the solution are installed, they will not function.
- License recovery—As of Inventory Solution 6.1 SP2, setting the status of the computer to anything but Active will release a license. In prior versions, only Retired, Return to Lessor, and Disposed computers will free up a license. Deletion of the computer resource record will also release a license.
NOTE: Inventory Solution specific data on Retired, Return to Lessor and Disposed computers will be purged as part of a background process that runs each night.
Software Delivery Solution for Windows
- License consumption—A license is consumed the first time a managed computer requests a software delivery task. The prerequisites for this event would be the assignment (via the Notification Server console) of a software delivery task to a managed node that has the Software Delivery Solution agent installed. A license is not consumed from the existence of the Software Delivery Solution agent and/or the Task Synchronization agent on a managed computer.
- License count exceeded—All agents that attempt to obtain Software Delivery Tasks beyond the allowed node count will stop receiving the task details in their client policy files.
- License expiration (only applicable to Trial or otherwise temporary licenses)—Agent rollouts will still occur without a problem. Software Delivery jobs will be no longer be advertised to clients, including newer schedules for existing tasks.
- AUP expiration—All functions will continue normally. However, if newer versions of the solution are installed, they will not function.
- License recovery—Retired computers will not release a license.
- Computers can be deleted to release a license
- For unmanaged computers, the event deletion in Data Purging for Software Delivery can be used to clear out old records and free up licenses. This will not work for systems actively using Software Delivery Solution.
Patch Management Solution for Windows
- License consumption—A license is reserved the first time a managed node posts the results of an inventory rule scan to the Notification Server or requests a software update package. A license is not consumed from the existence of the Software Update, Inventory Rule, and/or the Package agent on a managed computer.
- License count exceeded—All agents will stop receiving new software update policies. The Notification Server will refuse to download new (the pmimport.cab file) patch management data from the Altiris Web site. Newly posted Inventory Rule scanning data will be silently discarded by the Notification Server.
- License expiration (only applicable to Trial or otherwise temporary licenses)—Software Update Agent rollouts will still occur without a problem. Inventory Rule scanning and Software update tasks will be no longer be advertised to clients, including newer schedules for existing tasks. The Notification Server will refuse to download new (the pmimport.cab file) Patch Management data from the Altiris Web site.
- AUP expiration—Pre-existing software bulletins will be available for enablement and deployment of their related software updates. The Notification Server will no longer be able to download updated versions of the PMImport.cab file. Software update policies and inventory rule scans will continue to function. However, it will not be possible to obtain updates for new bulletins and their corresponding inventory rules due to the inability to update the pmimport.cab. If a newer version of the solution is installed, it will not function.
- License recovery—Retired computers will not release a license. Computers must be deleted to release a license.
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