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With SolidWorks
2007 now available; I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss
some fundamental changes in the manner that SolidWorks licenses
their software. SolidWorks is making a substantial effort
to streamline and simplify the license activation process
for their products. While this will be a vast improvement
relative to their current licensing mechanism there will be
some issues that need to be realized and planned for prior
to deployment. These changes are occurring for some US customers
with the release of SolidWorks 2007 SP0.0. The vast majority
of US customers, including those of us in the mid-west, will
not see the changes until SP3.
Specifically there are two practices that I would like to
address in this article. First: the use of third party license
management products such as Sassafras Software’s KeyServer.
Second: the very common practice of deploying multiple stand-alone
seats of SolidWorks using a single serial number and registration
code.
Let’s start with some background. The new methodology
that SolidWorks will employ involves locking the SolidWorks
serial number to a single machine based on unique information
found on the computer’s hard drive. This means that
the single serial number will be functional on a maximum of
two machines at a time, the production machine and the home
use machine. The home use licenses will still be available.
The new mechanism will be much more simple and quicker for
new seats sold. Other benefits include no need for dongles
and COSMOS will now be licensed with the same mechanism as
SolidWorks, meaning one tool for all products.
For our customers that are currently using KeyServer as a
license management tool for SolidWorks it is important to
realize that with the new licensing scheme the ability to
use one serial number for tracking is gone. The means that
KeyServer uses for tracking utilization of licenses is not
an option anymore a thus it will not be effective for SolidWorks
license management beyond the 2007 SP2.X version.
For our customers that are currently deploying multiple seats
of SolidWorks using one serial number and registration code;
this practice will no longer be an option. With only one commercial
machine per serial number every machine will have to be activated
separately.
For both groups of customers mentioned above I recommend looking
at the potential of switching to SNL licensing. This will
over come issues with now being required to install with multiple
serial number and the increase workload that could be involved.
SNL will allow for one activation regardless of installation
size. This will be much easier than maintaining control of
many serial numbers and what machines they are installed on.
It will also simplify license management and help to insure
compliance with the license agreement.
There are several exciting changes coming our way with the
new version of SolidWorks. We will be working diligently to
keep our customers out ahead of the changes so that their
updates to the new version go as smoothly as possible. If
you have any questions regarding these changes please give
CATI tech support a call and we can begin discussing the issue
prior to software release and prior to your company’s
deployment of the affected service pack of SolidWorks.
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