Can you explain Visi.NET Licensing?

VisiBroker .NET Licensing

Introduction
VisiBroker .NET (aka Visi.NET) allows developers to add .NET application CORBA objects to communicate with objects written in Java, C and other languages.

Since licensing for Visi.NET is separate from the rest of VisiBroker, this article aims to explain the various options. This applies to versions 7.0, 8.0 and 8.5 over the supported Windows platforms.

Visi .NET Development
Unlike the full VisiBroker development product, Visi .NET is offered to developers free of charge, in order to encourage the use of .NET in a wider environment spanning heterogeneous programming languages and sub-systems.

Restrictions on a Visi.NET Development license are:
1. It does not include production deployment of Visi.NET applications.  
2. When Visi.NET is deployed for testing purposes, it periodically requires a user acknowledgement to a dialog window. This makes it unsuitable for a production deployment scenario.

Visi.NET Deployment
Visi.NET may be deployed as a client or as a server ORB.

Visi.NET Server ORB Deployment
Visi.NET as a server-side ORB, is licensed as part of the VisiBroker Production Core. If you have purchased a VisiBroker Production license for a server, the Visi.NET deployment component of that server is included.

Technically, the distinction between a Visi.NET server and client has to do with configuration and usage characteristics. The exact definition of a Visi.NET server in this context is:
      • It accepts more than 10 concurrent connections
      • It can use any Values for POA Policies

Visi.NET Client Deployment
The Visi.NET Client is separately priced for what is considered a normal client workstation (up to and including 4 cores). For any larger configuration, it is considered a server and requires VisiBroker Production Core licensing.

A client may still create a POA to handle callbacks subject to the following restrictions:
1. No more than 10 concurrent connections can be created for callbacks
2. Since a callback object wouldn’t need them, a client has POA (Portable Object Adapter) policies that don’t use the following values:
    o LifespanPolicyValue.PERSISTENT
    o  RequestProcessingPolicyValue.USE_SERVANT_MANAGER   
    o  RequestProcessingPolicyValue.USE_DEFAULT_SERVANT

Also note that a Visi.NET client license will not work on a machine which has ASP.NET installed (i.e. an IIS machine).

Installation Notes

During the installation of Visi.NET 8.0, a slip file (server.slip, client.slip, dev.slip) based on the license type(Server, Client, Development) chosen is copied to the VisiNet folder.