License Administration

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Overview

• Permanent License Expiration
• Evaluation License Expiration
• Permanent License Release
• Licensing and Disaster Recovery

Feature Licenses

• VaultTracker Licenses

Product Licenses

Licensing for Express Versions

License Administration

• Activate Permanent Licenses
• Extend the Expiry Date for CommServe Licenses
• Convert Evaluation Licenses to Permanent Licenses
• Validate License After Changing the CommServe IP Address
• Anticipate License Expiration
• Respond to License Expiration

What Happens When a License Expires

• CommServe or Agent Licenses
• Feature Licenses

Best Practices

Related Alerts

Related Reports

Overview

Every component in the system (MediaAgents, libraries, and agents), and certain CommCell features, require a product license or feature license for use. The following types of licenses are available:

Evaluation and permanent licenses for the same license type can co-exist within the same CommCell. When components are initially installed, the software will first consume any available permanent licenses before consuming evaluation licenses. The License Summary Report and License Administration dialog box will show the numbers of evaluation and permanent licenses available and consumed within the CommCell. See View All Licenses for step-by-step instructions.

Permanent License Expiration

When a permanent license for the CommServe is bought or activated, depending on the type of license purchased, an expiry date will be set by your software provider. If necessary, the expiry date for a permanent CommServe license can be extended by purchasing new licenses. Contact your software provider for more information.

The License Administration dialog box provides information on the CommServe expiry date. Additionally, the CommCell Console displays a dialog box during login if the license expiry date is 60 days or less from the current date. See View the License Expiration Date for the CommServe for step-by-step instructions.

Evaluation License Expiration

For evaluation licenses, the expiration clock begins from the moment the license is consumed, not the time the CommServe is installed or the evaluation license is generated. The expiration period for evaluation licenses is usually 60 days following the date the license was consumed, although the expiration period may vary depending on the license purchased.

Evaluation licenses that were consumed on different days will have different expiration dates. For example, a license consumed on the 20th of October will expire on the 19th of December, whereas a license consumed on the 30th of October will expire on the 29th of December.

The License Administration dialog box provides two methods of viewing evaluation license usage:

• The General tab provides information on all existing permanent and evaluation licenses, including license types, the number of licenses used, the number of licenses available, and the expiration dates for evaluation licenses. See View All Licenses for step-by-step instructions.
• The Evaluation Usage dialog box provides information specific to the existing evaluation licenses, including the client name, license type, install date, and expiration date.  See View Evaluation Usage for step-by-step instructions.

Permanent License Release

Permanent licenses can be released when any of the following operations are performed:

• Uninstall a MediaAgent or Agent
• Deconfigure a MediaAgent or Agent
• Deconfigure a library
• For a Windows or UNIX Cluster, when MediaAgent or Agent software is uninstalled from the virtual server and from every node where the binaries were installed to host the cluster virtual server.
• For a NetWare cluster, when the MediaAgent or Agent software is uninstalled from the virtual server.

When a permanent license is released, the license will remain available for use at a later time should the component be reinstalled or reconfigured.

Licensing and Disaster Recovery

The CommServe license can have two IP addresses, a primary IP address for a CommServe host computer, and an IP address for a CommServe hosted in the disaster recovery site. This provides the system with the capability to automatically identify the appropriate CommServe when the CommServe meta data is restored in the disaster recovery site. See Disaster Recovery Using a Hotsite - Planning for an overview of planning for disaster recovery.

Contact your software provider to obtain a copy of the Dual IP License before building the disaster recovery site.

Feature Licenses

For each CommCell feature that is installed, a license is consumed. While some features have their own unique license, other features share the same license type.

The Oracle RAC iDataAgent does not consume a license. However, an Oracle iDataAgent license is required for each Oracle RAC node on which you configure Oracle iDataAgent instances.

You can view the available feature licenses using the License Administration dialog box. Licenses can be sorted by license type, group, usage, or total number of licenses available. The following table lists the feature licenses as they are displayed in the License Administration dialog box and the License Summary Report, as well as how each license is consumed:

VaultTracker Licenses

The VaultTracker license provides the capability to track media movement between two locations. It is also used to export media.

The VaultTracker Enterprise license provides the capability to track media movement between several locations. In addition to the standard VaultTracker features, it also provides several advanced capabilities.

See Also:

• VaultTracker
• VaultTracker Enterprise

Product Licenses

For most CommCell components or agents that are installed, a license is consumed.

While some agents have their own unique license, other agents share the same license type.

The Oracle RAC iDataAgent does not consume a license. However, an Oracle iDataAgent license is required for each Oracle RAC node on which you configure Oracle iDataAgent instances.

Also, the Data Classification Enabler does not consume a license.

You can view the available product licenses using the License Administration dialog box. Licenses can be sorted by license type, group, usage, or total number of licenses available.. The following table lists the product licenses as they are displayed in the License Administration dialog box and the License Summary Report, as well as how each license is consumed:

Licensing for Express Versions

Each license for Express versions of the software allows you to set up and configure a limited number of components in a CommCell. Refer to the appropriate Quick Start Guide for the maximum number of components available with your licenses.

The following operations are not available in Express versions of the software:

• Job Priorities
• Start a Job in a Suspended State
• Schedule Policies
• Dynamic Drive Sharing (DDS)
• Ability to create more than one user or user group
• Synthetic Full Backups
• Operation Windows
• List Media
• Erase Media
• Scheduling of Reports
• Custom Calendar

The following reports are not available in Express versions of the software:

• User Capability
• Jobs in Storage Policy Copies

License Administration

The License Administration dialog box in the CommCell Console allows you to examine and update the existing licenses in your entire CommCell. When a component is installed or uninstalled, the license type count is updated to reflect the new configuration. Note that the CommServe component does not contain a separate license type and count; it is automatically included in the CommCell configuration. This dialog box displays:

• The license type for the product, platforms, and components installed in the CommCell, in addition to the feature licenses that are available.
• The total number of available evaluation and permanent licenses for each license type.
• The number of evaluation and permanent licenses actually used.
• The expiration date for the CommServe and each of the product/feature licenses if the license is an evaluation copy.

Activate Permanent Licenses

Permanent licenses can be activated from the License Administration dialog box. Licenses must be activated in the following situations:

• To add permanent licenses for additional components in the CommCell.
• To update the IP address of the CommServe computer.
• To add additional evaluation licenses.

To obtain additional licenses, contact your software provider.

See Activate Licenses for step-by-step instructions on how to activate permanent licenses.

Extend the Expiry Date for CommServe Licenses

If you wish to extend the expiry date of the CommServe you must obtain a new license file and then extend the expiry date by applying the new license on the CommServe. Contact your software provider for more information.

The expiry date of the CommServe license can be extended using the License Administration dialog box. This enables all operations to continue uninterrupted beyond the expiration date. See Activate Licenses for step-by-step instructions on how to extend the expiry date of the CommServe license.

Convert Evaluation Licenses to Permanent Licenses

Evaluation licenses may be converted to permanent licenses using the License Administration dialog box. This enables all operations to continue uninterrupted beyond the expiration date of the evaluation license.

When converting permanent licenses for a given product or feature, all evaluation licenses of that type are automatically converted without further user intervention required as long as the number obtained is equal to or greater than the number of existing evaluation licenses.

If the total number of permanent licenses available is less than the total number of consumed evaluation licenses, you must manually convert each evaluation license individually. You may convert as many consumed evaluation licenses to permanent licenses as you wish, provided you have sufficient permanent licenses available. See Convert Evaluation Licenses to Permanent Licenses for step-by-step instructions on how to convert evaluation licenses to permanent licenses.

When an evaluation license is converted to a permanent license, the following changes can be observed in the License Administration dialog box:

• The CommCell ID is updated with a serial number.
• The CommServe ID is updated with the IP address of the CommServe computer.

To obtain additional permanent licenses, contact your software provider.

Validate License After Changing the CommServe IP Address

After installing the software, if you change the CommServe's IP address, the existing CommCell license becomes invalid. This may render the software inoperable until you update the license with the new IP address. To update the license you must obtain an IP Address Change license from your software provider.

Anticipate License Expiration

If you have not converted the CommCell evaluation license to a permanent license, and you are concerned as to when the evaluation license will expire, you can check the expiration date from the CommCell Console as follows:

• From the License Administration dialog box by clicking on the Evaluation Usage tab. For information on viewing evaluation license usage using this tab, see View Evaluation Usage.
• From the Event Viewer. The Event Viewer displays license expiration information at a set time before the actual license expiration. If your license is due to expire within 10 days or less, this information is displayed as a major event in the Event Viewer. This event message is triggered by any type of data protection operation, including Synthetic Full backups. For information on events, see Event Viewer.

Respond to License Expiration

When your license expires, you may have to either purchase a new license or extend the existing license. Contact your software provider for more information.

What Happens When a License Expires

CommServe or Agent Licenses

The following list identifies some common problems that may be encountered when the CommServe or an Agent license expires. You can determine whether these specific problems are caused by license expiration by checking the messages in the Event Viewer or the appropriate log file as indicated in the following sections. (Log files are found in the <software installation path>\Log Files folder.)

Data Protection Operations Do Not Run

Check the license information of the associated agent. Data protection operations may not run if the license for the associated agent has expired. You will also see the following error messages:

MediaAgent Will Not Restart

Check the license information of the associated MediaAgent. A MediaAgent that is installed on the same computer as the CommServe may not restart if the license for the MediaAgent has expired. You will also see the following error messages:

You Cannot Perform Data Protection and Recovery Operations

All data protection and recovery operations will become unavailable when the CommServe license expires.

Certain data protection and recovery operations will become unavailable if the corresponding evaluation license for that feature or product has expired.

In this situation, you must obtain the necessary permanent license for that feature or product by contacting your software provider. You must then activate the license using the License Administration dialog box.

See Activate Licenses for step-by-step instructions on how to activate permanent licenses.

New Components cannot be installed

You cannot install new components in the CommCell when the CommServe license expires.

Feature Licenses

The following table describes what happens to specific features when the evaluation license expires:

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Best Practices

It is recommended that your license file is kept in a safe place. This file is needed in case you need to recover your system, as described in Rebuild the CommServe.

Related Alerts

Job Management CommCell Alert

The Job Management CommCell alert can be configured to notify users when the CommServe license will expire by enabling and configuring the Alert CommServe License Expires With n Days criterion.

Related Reports

License Summary Report

The License Summary Report provides information about the types of licenses in your CommCell.

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