Hello all,

I'm wondering what could be my options for a precise situation, and thought to write here before opening up a case.

Part of my work is to provide licenses from a professional master avid account to various editors. I mainly rely on dongles, but sometimes it is easier to use a virtual license. I have a relationship of trust with the editors, but recently I have been asked by one of them what I could do to prevent a user from opening up the Avid Link and getting the system ID and activation ID, deactivate the license and use it for is own means on another computer, or maybe later ?

My first thought would be to do indirect activation, using the Device ID from the computer and prevent the license to be used on another device, but nevertheless, the user could note the system ID and activ.ID and wait for the next time I deactivate it.

It is unlikely to happen, as a license is usually deactivated from one editor computer to be activated again soon on another. But the question still stand. Do we have a way to hide the license information after the succesful activation to be sure that is not recovered ? I know that we can open up cases to have licenses quickly reset, and so that this is not a real issue, but I'm still wondering, for the unlikely day where I'd face a devious user, or just for the sake of security and license control.

Hope I'm clear enough. Thanks for reading me ! :)

Regards,

Benoît Broucquart.

Is a floating license server and option?

I've set up a few and they run well on a Virtual machine hosted somewhere out of the way.

Hello Pat,

Thanks for the reply.

A floating license server was not what I had in mind, but it is one option. It requires to buy servers and setup a new workflow, though, I'm wondering if there is not a less costly solution. After all I'm just looking to hide my licence informations. :)

Regards,

Benoît.

But the all I'm asking for isn't an easy ask. You are running standalone machines persumably with users having full admin access. The licenseing info needs to be accessible to normal users and there is no logic to hidding it from them. 

So its not an easy solution. Adding a seperate level of restriction would just get in the way of normal users.

The floating server does need a server to run off but that could be a cerntalised machine already doing some other function.

Or a Virtual machine running within an existing server.

But the all I'm asking for isn't an easy ask. You are running standalone machines persumably with users having full admin access. The licenseing info needs to be accessible to normal users and there is no logic to hidding it from them. 

So its not an easy solution. Adding a seperate level of restriction would just get in the way of normal users.

The floating server does need a server to run off but that could be a cerntalised machine already doing some other function.

Or a Virtual machine running within an existing server.

Pat Horridge:

But the all I'm asking for isn't an easy ask. You are running standalone machines presumably with users having full admin access. The licensing info needs to be accessible to normal users and there is no logic to hiding it from them. 

So its not an easy solution. Adding a seperate level of restriction would just get in the way of normal users.

I understand the logic of what you're explaining to me, it's a good point : you want more control, have a controlled environment.

Thank you.

Regards,

Benoît.

Its even more complex that that. Many places use their Avid off the net so you have to be able to see the licensing options to manually control licensing. In an ideal world we'd not have users with admin rights and control it that way but few can support that level of control.