The Charon VE License server provides a new type of licensing for Charon products. This is in addition to the already existing licensing models. This section briefly describes the different licensing concepts and products.

Contents

Charon VE Licenses

The main characteristics of VE (Virtual Environment) licenses are the following:

Software licenses only.
Developed by Stromasys.
Installed on the Charon host or a separate license server.
Require the Charon VE license server software.
Require matching VE-capable Charon emulator software.
Different modes of operation:
- For general VE mode, the customer is billed by Stromasys depending on the number and type of the emulated systems allowed by the installed license(s). The license server software itself is free of charge.
- AutoVE mode is an extension of automatic licensing and introduces metered billing (by the cloud-provider) for VE licenses in cloud environment. It defines how many Charon emulator cloud instances can be run based on the respective license. The number of emulated systems on each host instance is limited by the host resources, not the license.
- The license server for both modes is managed by the customer.
Support at the time of writing:
- VE license server availability: supported clouds (at the time of writing: AWS, OCI, Azure, GCP, IBM, and Nutanix), supported VMware environments, and physical servers.
- AutoVE support:
  - VE License server starting with version 1.1.21.
  - Charon-SSP AL (Automatic Licensing) marketplace images version 5.3.8 or higher on AWS, OCI, GCP, and Azure only.
- Charon emulator product support: Charon-SSP and Charon-PAR (starting with Charon-PAR version 3.0.6 and VE license server version 1.1.19).

The present document describes the use of Virtual Environment licenses.

Sentinel (Gemalto) HASP Licenses

Sentinel HASP licenses are the "traditional" licensing method for Charon emulator products. Their main characteristics are:

Software and hardware (dongle) licenses.
Based on third-party vendor solution.
Require special third-party license driver software.
Installed on Charon host or separate license server.
Problematic in cloud environments and somewhat difficult to use in VMware environments.
Dongles are a flexible and host-hardware independent solution for on-premises installations (as long as there is a free USB port).
The customer is billed by Stromasys depending on the number and type of the emulated systems allowed by the installed license(s). The license driver software itself is free of charge.

Please refer to the Charon License Handbook (Licensing Documentation) for details about these licenses.

Charon-SSP Automatic Licensing for Cloud Environments

When installing a Charon-SSP Automatic Licensing (AL) image from a supported cloud marketplace, the cloud instance automatically receives a license at first launch. The license server must be reachable via a cloud-specific public IP address. The license server is operated by Stromasys. The customer is billed by the cloud provider depending on the type, configuration, and active use of the Charon host instance. See also AutoVE mode which allows a customer to run their own license server for an instance launched from such a marketplace image.

Rationale for VE Licenses

Other license types have drawbacks that prompted the development of VE licenses:

USB dongles are not suitable for cloud environments and their use in VMware environments is somewhat complex.
Sentinel software licenses are easy to install in a cloud or VMware environment. However, their ties to hardware characteristics also make it easy to inadvertently invalidate them in such environments. Hence they are not suited for use in cloud environments and difficult to use in VMware environments. Other Sentinel software license types do not provide the same level of license security.
Cloud-based automatic licensing (without AutoVE) does not allow a customer-specific environment in the cloud without access to the public Internet. This is not suitable for many customers who require a private cloud network environment complying with their own security and management policies.

VE licenses are designed to enable the ease-of-use of software licenses while providing a high level of security for licensing Charon products in virtualized environments.

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