Before Starting the Installation

This section briefly presents what a typical license server and license client setup looks like, and highlights certain points you must keep in mind before performing the installation.

This page discusses:

Operating System Prerequisites

The following operating systems are supported:

  • Windows 10 64-bit x86 (failover mode and Windows modern standby are not supported)
  • Windows Server 2016 64-bit x86
  • Windows Server 2019 64-bit x86
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.n 64-bit x86 (where "n" is greater than or equal to 5)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.n 64-bit x86 (where "n" is greater than or equal to 1)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SPn 64-bit x86 (where "n" is greater than or equal to 4).
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SPn 64-bit x86 (where "n" is greater than or equal to 1)

A minimum of 2GB of RAM is required, 4GB of RAM are recommended for a standalone server, 8GB for each failover member.

For more detailed information about prerequisites, see the Program Directory.

License Server and Client Typical Setup

A license server helps the administrator to guarantee the license control is implemented in compliance with purchased licensed products embedding the license client.

A typical license server and client setup looks like this:

The DS License Server is installed on a server machine on your network. The license administrator enrolls the product licenses on the server. The applications embedding license clients communicate with the license server over the network and retrieve the licenses from the license server.

Preliminary Remarks

Before you start the installation, keep the following points in mind.

Virtual machines, such as VMWare, are not supported. It is not possible to either run or install the DS License Server on a virtual machine. However the license administration tool alone can be installed on a virtual machine. Furthermore, extracting an offline license and using a nodelock license in a virtual machine are not supported.

Note: However, there is one exception: Hyper-V virtual machine is supported.

Only one DS License Server can be installed and configured on a given computer, either as a standalone or as a failover member.

License servers and license clients must be time-synchronized.

Upgrading Your License Server

Keep in mind the following when you install a new version of the DS License Server:

  • each version of (or hot fix for) the DS License Server is complete, in other words, it is installed in place of the existing version, so the existing version must be uninstalled beforehand
  • uninstalling the DS License Server does NOT remove license keys, settings or log files
  • failover members can communicate with each other only if they are at the same license server code level. Be aware that upgrading failover cluster members from a given license server code level to a higher code level will prevent the failover cluster from functioning while you are upgrading the second member. Once the second cluster member has been upgraded, normal failover operation resumes.

To upgrade your license servers in a failover cluster, refer to Upgrading Your License Servers in a Failover Cluster.