Online licensing

[YoyoBoy]

I'm considering transferring my dongle license to online. Will my computer need to be online whenever I start up VRay? I'm a contractor who works at home, and two or three times a year my internet will go dead for one reason or another, sometimes for most of a day. And on a couple occasions I had to set up shop in countries with sketchy internet connections. Are there safeguards against these situations?

Thanks.

[stefan.isakov]

Yes, V-Ray license tied to a username(online based) needs stable internet connection all the time when V-Ray is used. There is an option to borrow your online based license for offline usage. More information regarding offline usage of the V-Ray license can be found on our documentation wen site below:
https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...or+Offline+Use

Please note: When you borrow the license for offline usage on a definite machine, it will appear in V-ray license server status page "localhost:30304" as engaged and into the other machines where this license is used(if it used). That is why you will have to released it if you want the same license to be online based again and ready to be used on any machine which connected to internet.

Let me know if more assistance is needed.

[YoyoBoy]

Thanks. That borrowing feature should help a lot. Hmm, come to think of it, I've probably had at least as much trouble with my ancient dongle than I've had with internet access. So I guess I'll do it.

[YoyoBoy]

After the license has been transferred, can the WIBU software be uninstalled, or does the online license use that?

[ivan.slavchev]

After the license has been transferred, can the WIBU software be uninstalled, or does the online license use that?

You can uninstall it, the drivers are only for the USB dongle, if you don't use it you won't need them.

[JD3D_CGI]

It's great that you are rolling out online licensing now - however, I did not see any provisions for situations for when the internet goes down.

I would hope that the system would fall back to using the dongle, or perhaps there could be some kind of "grace period" system - we have all had days where our internet goes down.

Can we not think of some kind of solution for this?

[ivan.slavchev]

It's great that you are rolling out online licensing now - however, I did not see any provisions for situations for when the internet goes down.

I would hope that the system would fall back to using the dongle, or perhaps there could be some kind of "grace period" system - we have all had days where our internet goes down.

Can we not think of some kind of solution for this?

You can borrow the licenses and enable the Auto-Renew option - https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...or+Offline+Use
That way the licenses will re-borrow themselves before they expire (if there's Internet connection), but otherwise will be obtained offline, so if the Internet goes down temporarily you'll still be able to use them.

[Alex_M]

Anyone using online licensing instead of dongle? I would like to hear personal experiences with it as I am figuring out whether I want to convert mine from hardware based (dongle) to online based. Any pros and cons for both? Where I'm working from, internet connection is quite stable with outages only 2-3 times a year for not more than a day. Is there something I should be aware of beforehand? Is it better than the dongle license and why? Thanks in advance!

[ivan.slavchev]

Anyone using online licensing instead of a dongle? I would like to hear personal experiences with it as I am figuring out whether I want to convert mine from hardware based (dongle) to online based. Any pros and cons for both? Where I'm working from, internet connection is quite stable with outages only 2-3 times a year for not more than a day. Is there something I should be aware of beforehand? Is it better than the dongle license and why? Thanks in advance!

Hi Alex, both have pros and cons, depending on your environment. From personal experience (as well troubleshooting quite a lot of license issues):

1. Online licensing:

Pros:
- No dongle is needed - after all, the dongle is a piece of hardware and can malfunction, break, get lost etc. If that happens you have to wait shipping time to receive a new dongle. Also - doesn't need a free USB port - some MACs, for example, come with no USB ports and you have to buy additional connectors.
- License upgrades/changes are easier since it's done solely on our backend and does not require the user to do any reprogramming.
- You can set up more than one license server machine with the same login and the licenses will be synchronized over the Internet. That's useful if you want to have a backup license server or you want to use your license at work and at home, for example. Or - for larger companies, if they have offices in different geographical locations.
- Works a lot easier with Virtual Machines (no USB passthrough needed, the license server can be in a cloud or in a datacenter)
- If you use only 1 machine for a license server you can "borrow" the licenses for offline usage. That means that the license server will check the license status on the backend only once every 2 weeks, thus protecting you from Internet outages.
- Easier and faster troubleshooting form Chaos group support - client's license status can be seen in real-time
- Easier to obtain and more detailed logs.
- Secure connection with our backend.
- Friendlier user interface

Cons:
- Needs Internet (not suitable for entirely off-line usage)
- Cannot work with more than one Proxy server (some clients - although rare- use load balancing between more than one Proxy server to access Internet form inside the company)
- Works only with "Simple" proxy authentication (at least for now). If you use AD credentials or another similar type of proxy authentication (if you use any kind of proxy server in your environment) - the license server won't be able to authenticate and you'll have to add an exception for it in the proxy.


2. Dongle licensing

Pros
- Not dependent on Internet connection (can work off-line). Useful also if you travel to a place with no Internet connection.
- No traffic is sent outside your organization

Cons
- Hardware dongles can be broken or malfunction
- Cannot be used in very restrictive environments (USB ports disabled for security reasons)
- The license server can be running only on the machine with the dongle - no redundancy
- If a user is outside the company network he needs to set up a VPN to be able to obtain licenses
- Hard to use with Virtual Machines
- License updates needs user interaction and takes more time compared than OLS
- More time consuming for troubleshooting from support. Licenses are not visible real-time
- Dependant on third-party hardware and software (hardware dongles and drivers) that we cannot control
- Additional costs for hardware locks
- Downtime in case of hardware locks broken

[Alex_M]

Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly clarify these points for me, Ivan!

[stevesideas]

Another question if you don't mind. If I have a dongle at work and switch to online licensing can I then use that online license on my home computer or can it only be used on the one at work ?

[ivan.slavchev]

Another question if you don't mind. If I have a dongle at work and switch to online licensing can I then use that online license on my home computer or can it only be used on the one at work ?

Yes, you'll be able to use the license at home - as long as it's not occupied by another machine at your office - for example - leaving a computer that's holding the license in your office and trying to use the same license at home.

[stevesideas]

okay. Thanks

[Aristas]

We are considering switching to online licensing, but we work in a very restrictve enterprise environment, so I have a few questions.

1. From what I understand, our ~12 licenses are all under 1 user (who did the purchasing). If I wanted to connect from home, Would I need this user's login information?
2. Is there any way to have seperate user accounts for EACH user that are able to access our licenses? I don't think our purchasing department will give us access to that user info and sharing user ids is discouraged.
3. Based on your last reply, Ivan, does that mean I would need to manually deactivate my office machine if I wanted to work from home (as in, before I left for the day)?
4. Is there anyway to deactivate a machine through the user account/license server interface? (for example: If I can't make it into the office one day and was not able to deactivate my vray on my office workstation ahead of time).

Thanks

[PUKhal]

We got the onlince license server working at our company. It?s really easy to setup. We at frist had some problems getting VRScans running one the renderfarm, but that problem was solved with a restart of the clients or the reset of the render slave service.