A floating license model provides an easy way to validate the end user’s rights to use the software. However, floating licenses depend on a stable network connection between the client machine, on which the licensed software runs, and the license server, which delivers the license to the client.

If a machine is not connected to a network or the network has frequent failures, the most obvious solution is to use a node-locked license model instead of a floating license model. With node-locked licenses, the license file must be generated and copied onto the specific machine. The environment variable LMX_LICENSE_PATH must be set to allow the software to “see” the license. The XML license template file for a node-locked license has some restrictions, as described in Application licensing strategies.

If you decide to use network licensing with an unstable network connection or with applications that are crucial to keep running, you should consider two solutions that will help with the reliability of license checkout for end users: grace licensing and High Availability Licensing (HAL).

For details on how to configure HAL, see HAL_SERVERS.