What is a Group Licensing?
Group Licensing and Activation is a new and updated type of software licensing for activating licenses for Hyper-V nodes and Exchange mailbox servers, respectively, in HC10. With this licensing method, there is no need to buy multiple keys for different servers. One key will activate services for all the servers owned by the host.
What is the Purpose of Group Licensing? Why is it Needed?
In the past, customers were required to buy several license keys for managing several servers/nodes via the HC panel. While this may not seem like a problem at first, managing several license keys may become a tedious task for HC to handle.
For example, suppose a customer wants to provision 5 servers/nodes (2 Exchange servers and 3 Hyper-V nodes). According to the old licensing method, the customer needs to buy 5 license keys (i.e., 2 keys for 2 Exchange servers and 3 keys for 3 Hyper-V nodes). This puts a burden on HC because it makes it difficult for HC to manage a sizable number of license keys.
How does Group Licensing Work?
With the group licensing method, a customer only needs to acquire a single key for all the servers/nodes the customer needs to manage via the HC panel. For example, if a customer wants to create 10 servers, the customer will need 1 key to manage all 10 servers via the HC panel. This greatly reduces the burden on the HC system.
Use-Case Scenarios for Group Licensing:
1. For the Provisioning of Hyper-V Nodes
Suppose the customer wants to manage 5 Hyper-V nodes. Let’s say the customer buys a group license key with a maximum limit of 100 VMs. The customer can use one license key for the provisioning of all 5 nodes. While provisioning, the HC control panel will create VMs across 5 nodes (the number of VMs to be created is specified by the customer during the provisioning prompt). Once the VMs hit their limit of 100, the control panel will not allow the customer to create any more VMs on any of the 5 nodes.
2. For the Provisioning of Exchange Servers
Suppose the customer wants to manage 10 Exchange servers. Let’s say the customer buys a group license key with a maximum limit of 1000 mailboxes. The customer can use one key for the provisioning of all 10 Exchange servers. While provisioning, the customer specifies the number of mailboxes to be created. The HC control panel will then allot the specified number of mailboxes across all 10 Exchange servers. If the limit of created mailboxes reaches 1000, the control panel will not allow the customer to create any more mailboxes on any of the 10 Exchange servers.
3. For Migrating Mailboxes from One Exchange Server to Another
Suppose the customer wants to migrate mailboxes from one Exchange server to another. The reason could be an upgrade to a newer version of Exchange (e.g., from Exchange 2016 to Exchange 2019). In this case, the customer will need only one license key for both servers.