Planning for the use of token licensing
If the token licensing is purchased for MobileFirst Server, you have extra steps to consider in the installation planning.
- Technical restrictions
- Here are the technical restrictions for the use of token licensing:
- Supported Platforms:
- The list of platforms that support token licensing is listed at Limitations of supported platforms for token licensing. The MobileFirst Server running on a platform that is not listed might not be possible to install and configure for token licensing. The native libraries for the Rational® Common Licensing client might not available for the platform or not supported.
- Supported Topologies:
- From the list of topologies that are listed at Planning deployment of administration components and runtimes, the non-symmetric deployments are not supported. The number of tokens that are used by a MobileFirst cluster might be incorrect. In particular, the asymmetric deployment with runtimes and administration services in different server or cluster is not supported on WebSphere® Application Server Network Deployment.
- Network requirement
- MobileFirst Server must
be able to communicate with the Rational License
Key Server. This communication requires the access to the following two ports of the license server:
- License manager daemon (lmgrd) port - the default port number is 27000.
- Vendor daemon (ibmratl) port
- Installation Process
- You need to activate token licensing when you run the IBM® Installation Manager at installation
time. For more information about the instructions for enabling token
licensing, see Installation overview for token licensing.
After MobileFirst Server is installed, you must manually configure the server for token licensing. For more information, see Installing and configuring for token licensing.
The MobileFirst Server is not functional before you complete this manual configuration. In Installing and configuring for token licensing, the Rational Common Licensing client library is to be installed in your application server, and you define the location of the Rational License Key Server.
- Operations
- The tokens are checked out per application. The tokens are checked
out when an application is uploaded, a runtime server starts, or a
token is refreshed after its expiration date. At server starts, if IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation fails
to obtain the tokens it needs, the server will not be functional.
If IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation fails
to renew its expired tokens during operations, the applications are
deactivated. The mobile app users can no longer access the applications.
If you need to test a non-production application on a production server with token licensing enabled, you can declare the application as non-production. For more information about declaring the application type, see <licenseAppType> element in The application descriptor and also Token licensing: setting the license app type.
For more information about the retrieval of tokens during operations, see Token license validation.
- Development
- When you develop your application, you must declare the type of application and the license entitlement it matches (such as NON_PRODUCTION, APPLICATION, or ADDITIONAL_BRAND_DEPLOYMENT). For more information, see <licenseAppType> element in The application descriptor and also Token licensing: setting the license app type.