License management and validation

A license management mechanism is a copy protection mechanism used to regulate the commercial use of LN.

The unprotected software must be validated and patched before a specified expiration date.

After installation, the core LN application can run for 30 days without a license mechanism. Integrations do not work.

Users can request a temporary key for demo and trial versions. This key is valid for 14 days. The temporary license is mainly introduced to overcome delays in delivery of permanent license keys.

For testing and demonstration purposes, unprotected software is dispatched with limited validity.

To license and validate LN

You validate and license your LN software with the Infor Solution License Manager (SLM). The SLM is a stand-alone product capable of licensing various Infor products.

If you use SLM to validate several Infor products, we recommend that you install at least two SLM servers on two separate systems, combined as one logical SLM server.

Licensing solution

SLM is the central license manager for the majority of the Infor products. SLM is a central license manager in the sense that one license manager can provide licenses to a variety of products. Installing and configuring a dedicated license manager individually by product is not required.

To establish a licensing solution, you require these components:

  • The Infor application or product that has adopted SLM licensing
  • The Solution License Manager product itself for handling the licenses. The License Manager checks the license requests from the adopting applications, according to the information that is stored and validated with Infor.
  • The Activation key that enables SLM. Submission of the Activation key enables the licenses that your adopting applications require to work.

SLM license types

Infor applications can be licensed in various ways. To see how your application must be licensed, see the Software License and Support Agreement (SLSA). Depending on the Infor pricing strategy, a restricted set of license types can be assigned to a specific application. For example, some applications can be licensed through any license type, where others can only be licensed through a server license.

In general, the license types are distinguished in node locking and user locking. With a node-locking license, the adopting application can only work on a specific node in your network. A network node can be a server but also a desktop. With a user-locking license, the adopting application can only work with specific named users or with a limited amount of concurrent users.

Currently, SLM supports these license types:

  • Concurrent User license

    A user-locking license in which a pool of concurrent users can use the adopting application.

  • Named User license

    A user-locking license in which a pool of specific named users can use the adopting application.

  • Server license

    A node-locking license in which a pool of specific named server or desktop computers can use the adopting application.

  • Instance license

    An instance-locking license in which a pool of specific named instances can be used for the adopting application.

    Note: With SLM 2.5, instance licensing is registered by means of server licensing.
  • Desktop license

    A node-locking license in which a set of adopting applications are linked to a pool of specific named server or desktop computers.

After a license request is made, the SLM server checks the license configuration (License file). This file contains the information on how many desktops, users, servers, or instances can use the application. Then, according to the license type, the specific named user, server, or desktop is verified.

Some adopting application can be licensed with all the various license types, where others can handle only a selection of licenses.

Named User license

If an adopting application uses Named User licensing, the SLSA states the number of named users that can use that application. The SLM server keeps track of a list of all specific users that are permitted to use that application. The server rejects a license request from an adopting application if the SLM server does not know the specific user name.

Infor validates the amount of named users and never knows the specific names of these users.

Some applications automatically synchronize the user names of their authorization module with the SLM server.

The SLM server checks for a specific user name in combination with the desktop name where the application is running. You can specify that a specific user can run the application concurrently from multiple desktops. Each desktop on which this user runs the application decreases the number of licenses by one.

License Administration in LN

In case of a Named User License, you can use the License Administration sessions in LN to keep the Named User list in SLM up to date.

A short description of the License Administration sessions:

  • SLM Product IDs by User (ttslm0130m000)

    Use this session to display or edit the SLM Product IDs that are used by a user.

  • Link SLM Product IDs to Users (ttslm0230m000)

    Use this session to link SLM Product IDs to Users that are based on the Authorization Management System. This session links the product IDs to users, based on which sessions the users are authorized for.

  • Synchronize User Data with SLM (ttslm0230m100)

    With this session you can synchronize user names with the SLM for product IDs that require a Named User License.