This glossary lists terms that are specific to X-Formation's license management solutions.

Client applicationAn application program that requests or receives a license from a license server.
Log fileOne or more ASCII text files written by a license server. For LM-X, a log file contains status information useful for debugging the license server. For License Statistics, log files contain information that can be imported into License Statistics and used to track license usage.
Feature

Any functionality that needs to be licensed. The definition of feature is developer-dependent, according to the application and to the developer’s requirements, but might include (for example):

  • A single program (irrespective of program version)
  • A specific version of a program
  • An application system consisting of multiple programs
  • A module of a program
Floating license

A license that can authorize usage of an application for users on a network. A license server is required to manage a floating license. With this type of license, the number of concurrent users is counted, with the licensed application usable by only a specified number of users at any time.

A variation of this scheme is a license that can be locked to work both with specific client computers and with a specified server computer.

Also referred to as network license or shared license.

Node-locked license

A license that can authorize use of an application running on a single specific machine, as opposed to being on a network. Node-locked licenses do not require a license server because they are uncounted.

Also referred to as local license.

Vendor nameName of the vendor used in license files.
License fileA text file shipped to an end user, which provides one or more features.
License server

A license server is defined as a software application hosting licenses for a single software vendor (e.g. vendor daemon), and not a physical machine.

A license server is required to manage a floating license.

Heartbeat A message sent from the client application and acknowledged by the license server to ensure that the license server is still up and running. This action is triggered periodically.
Windows systemRefers to Win32 or Win64 platform.
Unix systemRefers to Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Mac OS X and FreeBSD platforms.