Charon Emulator products require a product license to run. Stromasys offers several different licensing methods from which the one best suited to the customer requirements must be selected. This page provides an overview of the different methods and their applicability to different emulator environments.

The three basic licensing technologies that will be described in the following sections are:

Sentinel HASP licensing, a third-party solution offering local and network-based hardware and software licenses - now owned by Thales.
VE (Virtual Environment) licensing developed and owned by Stromasys offering local and network-based software licenses.
Automatic licensing for cloud instances developed and owned by Stromasys (currently for Charon-SSP only) offering cloud-specific metered licensing.

Additional information:

Sentinel HASP Licensing Documentation: detailed information about HASP licensing and managing the licensing option on different emulator products.
Virtual Environment (VE) License Server Documentation: detailed information about installing, configuring, and managing a VE license server, and about managing the licensing option on different emulators.
Charon-AXP, Charon-VAX, Charon-PAR, and Charon-SSP user's guides: detailed information about the product installation, in particular license drivers and utilities included in the product distribution. Detailed information about the configuration file content of each product.

Contents

Product Support Overview and General Recommendations

The different licensing types are described in more detail below. This section shows which options are supported by the individual products, and for which environments the options are best suited.

Your product	Supported licensing options	Suitable environment for licensing option
All emulator products	Sentinel HASP USB hardware license	On-premises installation on physical servers. On-premises installation in virtualized environment with USB port pass-through or USB port server. Backup license strongly recommended.
All emulator products	Sentinel HASP Software license	On-premises installation on physical servers with stable hardware and operating system configuration. On-premises installation in virtualized environment with stable virtual hardware and operating system configuration. Backup license indispensable.
Charon-AXP/VAX for Linux starting with version 4.12 Charon-PAR starting with version 3.0.6 Charon-SSP starting with version 4.2	VE licensing with general VE mode	On-premises installation on physical servers (VE license server on physical Linux host or on Linux instance in a supported cloud). On-premises installation in VMware environments with VE license server in same vCenter management sphere. Cloud installations (VE license server on physical Linux host or on Linux instance in a supported cloud). Backup license server indispensable.
Charon-SSP starting with version 4.2	Automatic licensing	Supported for Charon-SSP AL marketplace imaged provided on selected clouds. Public license servers operated by Stromasys.
Charon-SSP starting with version 5.4	Automatic licensing with AutoVE server	Supported for Charon-SSP AL marketplace imaged provided on selected clouds. Private AutoVE license server operated by the customer. Backup license server indispensable.

Licensing Options Characteristics

Common Characteristics of HASP and VE Licenses

Both, Sentinel HASP and VE licenses, have some common characteristics despite the differences in the technical implementation:

Several products can be licensed on one license.
Several emulator instances can be licensed on one license.
A license can be limited by a specified expiration date.
A license can be limited by a specified number of runtime hours (mostly used as backup licenses).
The license used by the emulator can be on the Charon emulator host itself or served over the network. Since software licenses are very sensitive to any hardware change or backup restoration, dedicated stable license server systems are recommended in production environments using software licenses.

Sentinel HASP Licenses (Thales) - Specific Characteristics

Sentinel HASP Overview

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 which is distributed with the Charon emulator products.
Installed on Charon host or separate license server.
Problematic in cloud environments and somewhat difficult to use in VMware environments.
Hardware 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.

USB Hardware Dongles

Prerequisites	USB hardware dongles require an available USB port on the system on which they are installed, or a supported USB port server. Supported Linux or Microsoft Windows system. Supported license drivers. In case of a network dongle: functioning network and firewall configuration between license client and license server.
Emulator support	All emulator products.
Typical use cases	On-premises installations - in particular if physical servers are used as Charon emulator hosts. For on-premises installations in VMware and similar environments, dongles can be used, but require additional configuration (e.g., passing a dongle through to a Charon host VM) and/or hardware (e.g., USB port server). Backup licenses for other HASP licenses. As there is no link to the hardware or operating system on which the dongle is used, dongles can be moved easily between systems.
Not suited for	Cloud environments. Even though theoretically an emulator host could be linked to an on-premises network license server offering a network license installed on a dongle, this is not a sustainable solution for a production environment.

HASP Software License

Prerequisites	Supported Linux or Microsoft Windows system. Supported license drivers. If offered as a network license: functioning network and firewall configuration between license client and license server. Stable hardware configuration of the system the license is installed on. Since a software license is tied to the hardware characteristics of the system it is installed on, changes in the hardware can easily invalidate the license. Backup license to support continued operation should there be an accidental invalidation of a software license.
Emulator support	All emulator products.
Typical use cases	On-premises installations if the hardware of the system the license is installed on is stable. Special attention to hardware stability is needed if the system runs under a hypervisor. Used as primary license with USB dongle or a network-based license server as backup license solution.
Not suited for	Cloud environments. Cloud instance hardware is not stable with respect to the characteristics relevant to a Charon HASP software license. The Charon emulator license is likely to be invalidated quickly. Other environments where the license would be installed on a system with frequently changing hardware.

Charon VE (Virtual Environment) Licenses - Specific Characteristics

VE License Basic Overview

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. Since software licenses are very sensitive to any hardware change or backup restoration, dedicated stable license server systems are recommended in production environments using software licenses.
Require the Charon VE license server software.
Require matching VE-capable Charon emulator software.

Prerequisites	Supported Linux system to be used for license server. Supported platform (supported cloud, VMware, or physical server) for the license server. If used across the network, correctly configured connectivity and firewall settings. Additional platform-dependent requirements described in the Virtual Environment (VE) License Server Documentation.
Emulator support	Charon-SSP Charon-PAR Charon-AXP/VAX for Linux
Typical use cases	Cloud installations On-premises installation where a hardware dongle is not required.
Not suited if	License server hardware changes frequently. Or frequent data restoration is expected. Licensing via hardware dongle is required.

Modes of Operation

VE licensing can be used in two different modes described below.

General VE Mode

Operational information:

The license server is owned and operated by the customer.
The customer requests a license from Stromasys and installs it on the license server.
The customer is billed for the license 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

Operational information:

Offered on selected clouds only (requires AL marketplace image).
At the time of writing Charon-SSP AL marketplace image only.
The license server is owned and operated by the customer.
The customer requests a license from Stromasys and installs it on the license server (due to the sensitivity to hardware changes and data restoration, the license server should be a stable dedicated instance).
The customer is billed for the license and the cloud instance by the cloud provider.
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.

Supported Platform Information

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 for General VE Mode	Charon-SSP and Charon-PAR (starting with Charon-PAR version 3.0.6 and VE license server version 1.1.19). Support for Charon-AXP/VAX is planned starting with version 4.12.

Charon-SSP Automatic Licensing (AL) for Cloud Environments

Main characteristics:

For special Charon-SSP AL marketplace image in selected clouds. The cloud instance automatically receives a license upon first launch.
The customer is billed for the cloud instance and the Stromasys product by the cloud provider.
Software license.
Licenses served by a Stromasys-operated public license server.
Licensing is not based on the number of Charon emulator instances, but per cloud instance - independent of the number of emulators run on the instance. The number of emulated systems on each host instance is limited by the host resources, not the license.

Prerequisites	Charon-SSP AL marketplace image. Stable virtual hardware of instance (changing number of CPUs will invalidate the license and require that a new instance be launched). Working Internet access of instance.
Emulator support	At the time of writing only Charon-SSP based on an AL marketplace image available on selected clouds.
Typical use cases	Cloud-only. Typically used by customers without a large cloud deployment who don't have a large cloud environment yet.
Not suited for	Anything outside a supported cloud. Large customer-adapted cloud environment. Privacy requirements prohibit Internet access

For a similar solution, but with a private, customer-operated license server, see AutoVE in the VE licensing section.

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