Allocating Licenses Using Named License Pools
Important:You can use either reservations or named license pools for license allocation. Reservations and named license pools cannot coexist alongside each other. If currently no license reservations are defined for your license server, review the information in Comparison of Named License Pools and Reservations to decide which approach is best for you. In general, reservations are conceptually similar to named license pools, but named license pools offer significantly more flexibility in controlling a server’s license estate. For more information, see Named License Pools vs. Reservations.
Note:In previous releases of the FlexNet Embedded license server, named license pools used to be referred to as “partitions”.
In a generic setup, each license server has a license pool which contains all the licenses available to its client devices. The license server distributes licenses from this license pool on a first-come-first-served basis to client devices requesting them. This license pool is also referred to as the default license pool.
However, in addition to the server’s default license pool you can create named license pools, which divide your license estate into groups of licenses. By defining rules of access, you can allocate licenses to a group of client devices or users to help ensure that these entities have access to the features they need.
Thus, a license server serves licenses from its default license pool and any named license pools that you create. Each named license pool contains license counts for one or more features, which can be allocated to client devices or users. It is important to note that in a named license pool, licenses are not assigned to individual client devices or users. Instead, counts allocated to a named license pool can be accessed by a number of devices or users that meet certain criteria, such as, for example, be member of a particular business unit or have a certain hostid. Allocated license counts can be checked out by any device or user that fulfills the specified criteria.
As the license server administrator, you can choose to allocate the entire pool of licenses, a portion of the licenses, or none of the licenses. Any license that is not allocated to a named license pool remains in the default license pool and is available to any device on a first-come-first-served basis.
The following sections provide information about named license pools on the FlexNet Embedded license server:
| • | Named License Pool Terminology |
| • | Introduction to the Model Definition |
| • | Model Definition Components |
| • | Server Behavior When Distributing Feature Counts to Named License Pools |
| • | Server Behavior when Assigning Features to Clients |
| • | Named License Pools vs. Reservations |
| • | Limitations of Named License Pools |