Uniface CE and EE licensing
The observant amongst us may have noticed that last week a new edition of the Uniface 10 Development Environment was released. This new edition is the Community Edition—a free to use, non-commercial version of the Uniface 10 IDE for Windows 10 and SQLLite—it is available today from http://www.uniface.com. Although the deployment options are limited, the product is complete, and all features are available for use.
Several product enhancements and features were needed to allow us to deliver this new Community Edition:
- An improved installer/patcher experience
- Updated branding (more to come)
- Replacement of our license manager (DLM)
All of these enhancements will also be coming to the Enterprise Edition (EE) when it is appropriate to add them. We can update the branding in a patch, but the installer/patching updates require a full install—a process not practical for most customers until 10.4.
The most significant addition to the product is a new license management system which enables a Cloud-Leased Licenses model. With this new license model, customers will no longer need to harvest information from each platform (DLM info) but instead only enter an entitlement id during installation (like we do to activate Windows). The license manager will collect the fingerprint information, register the system, and download a valid license. For Uniface 10 CE, the entitlement allows Uniface to be installed on three separate PCs using the same key. Rehosting is also possible by returning a license on one system and claiming it again on another.
As the term "Cloud-Leased" suggests, the downloaded license is leased and valid for a fixed period. During regular operation of an application, Uniface will periodically renew the license, extending the expiry date and applying any changes that have happened to the entitlement on the Cloud servers—such as the addition of a connector. It will be possible to update a lease upon request and have the changes become active immediately.
Cloud-Leased Licenses work uninterrupted when running offline for the period of the lease, with a default duration of 30 days from when the license was last renewed.
For Enterprise Edition there will be extra options available
We will supply a new local Rights Management System (RMS) server—similar to DLM server—to allow concurrent usage and central hosting of licenses. The licenses installed on the RMS server will also be available as Cloud-Leased Licenses.
For organizations where online access is not an option (i.e. due to legal or security restrictions), it will also be possible to run the cloud activation using a token exchange process via offline storage like a USB key.
An exciting opportunity provided by the new licensing system is the possibility to license cloud environments more reliably especially Docker containers.
We are working towards enabling all our existing license models in the new license manager.
A portal will be made available, enabling customers to see the usage data for their entitlement. We also plan for this portal to allow ISV/VARs to see the usage of their end-users.
It is our goal with this license system to dramatically simplify the effort required to install and maintain the licenses needed for your and your customer's applications.