Glossary

The following are the key terms and concepts used within Zentitle2.

Product

A PRODUCT defines the structure of the rights associated with a given product or application. It defines the specific features that can be enabled / disabled, the parameters that should be enforced and any advanced attributes such as counters.

Plan

A PLAN defines the BUSINESS MODEL that should be used - such as a 1-year subscription license, a perpetual (non-expiring) license, a 30-day trial, etc. It also defines the policy to be used to determine when the ENTITLEMENT should be ACTIVATED (ie. when the term period starts). Sample activation policies include: Activate upon creation, Activate upon first use, Activate manually.

Edition

An EDITION is a standard configuration of values for a given PRODUCTs attributes. Think of it as a template of standard sets of rights from which you wish to easily provision an entitlement for a given customer. This is typically used to create 'good, better, best' variations of a given product.

Offering

An OFFERING is a combination of an EDITION (for a given PRODUCT) and a PLAN, and represents the 'orderable items' from the vendor. The term 'OFFERING' is used interchangeably with 'SKU' (Stock Keeping Unit) and 'Part Number'.

Features

FEATURES are individual attributes of a given PRODUCT or ENTITLEMENT. Standard FEATURES are those that can be either on or off (enabled / disabled / boolean). Advanced FEATURES include floating features, element pools and consumption tokens.

Attributes

ATTRIBUTES are arbitrary key/value pairs that can be embedded securely within the entitlement. They can represent informational attributes (customer name, order id, etc.) or may represent part of the overall business model (such as maximum storage that can be used, a list of devices that can be attached, etc.)

Entitlement

An ENTITLEMENT is created from a specific OFFERING, typically as the result of a customer ordering / purchasing a given OFFERING. It initially inherits the attributes of that offering but can then be modified over time (through upgrades, renewals, etc.)

Floating Feature

A FLOATING FEATURE attribute is a concurrent use concept that allows users within a multi-seat entitlement to 'check out' a seat of a given 'feature'. For example, in a 10 seat entitlement, the vendor may have provisioned 5 seats of a given floating feature. Up to 5 concurrent users may check out a seat of that feature to unlock additional capabilities. When they no longer need that additional functionality they can then 'check in' that seat of that feature in order to free it up for another user. The number of floating feature seats should always typically be less than the number of seats on the entitlement itself.

Element Pool

An ELEMENT POOL is also a concurrent use concept but allows the vendor to provision an arbitrary count of some resource or metric. An individual user (through the application making the appropriate call) can 'check out' a certain count of elements from the given pool in order to unlock some capability. They may make additional requests to check out further elements from the pool, or return elements to the pool as their needs go up or down. Zentitle2 ensures that at no point in time do all the user's allocations in aggregate exceed the total quantity of elements in the pool that the vendor has provisioned for that entitlement.

Consumption Tokens

A Consumption Token is a counter that aggregates usage across all the users of an entitlement. It can be used to track any kind of usage over time (# of reports run, simulations performed, etc.) Counter values can then be queried by the vendor through the Management API as the basis for billing calculations or other purposes. Consumption counts can also be reset (such as at the beginning of each month). If the count has reached the specified maximum value on the entitlement then further requests will be denied (until the current count is reset).

Customer

Each entitlement can be associated with a given CUSTOMER. The CUSTOMER attribute allows users of Zentitle2 to easily search for the current set of entitlements associated with a given customer account.

Concurrency Mode

Activations against an entitlement can be handled in either a 'concurrent' or 'floating' license model, or as a persistent 'node lock' model. Concurrent use involves 'checking out' a seat against the entitlement and then 'checking in' the seat when the application or use terminates. This allows the vendor to enforce a 'maximum concurrent user' model. The 'node lock' model allows the vendor to enforce a 'maximum seats' model where each seat has a persistent activation against the entitlement.

Seats

Each ENTITLEMENT is set up for a specific number of SEATS. The seats attribute controls the maximum number of unique activations that can be performed against the entitlement. Each unique SeatID counts as a single seat.

Global Features

GLOBAL FEATURES allows the definition of a set of FEATURES, ATTRIBUTES, and ADVANCED FEATURES that are inherited by ALL products.

Activation Code

One or more unique strings can be used within the Licensing API in order to activate a seat against an entitlement. Any valid activation code for an entitlement can be used to activate a seat against that entitlement.

Lease Period

The lease period specifies the amount of time the application can run locally with a cached view of the license rights before forcing a refresh of those rights from the cloud-based server (or a local license server). Note that the lease period is completely independent of the term of the license itself (the license could be perpetual, a subscription, etc.)

Offline Lease Period

The amount of time that a local cached version of the entitlement can be treated as valid when activated using offline activation.

Linger Period

A linger period in software licensing refers to the minimum amount of time a license can be checked out - typically in a concurrent use license. This concept particularly applies to applications with relatively short execution times (like compilers, linkers, etc.) Setting a linger period of 1 hour means that a license that is checked out and then checked in again will have that seat occupied on the license for a full hour even if it is checked in prior to that.

Overdraft License

An overdraft license is a set of additional seats that a vendor may provide a licensed user beyond what they have purchased. This allows the user to make greater use of the application but to have that usage tracked by Zentitle2. Use of overdraft licenses may be charged on a predetermined basis, or may simply be taken into account during account renewals, etc. Overdraft licenses can be expressed as a specified number of additional seats, or as a percentage of the purchased seats (i.e. 10%, 25%). NOTE: Overdraft capability will be coming in an upcoming release of Zentitle2.

Grace Period

A grace period is a specified amount of time given by a software vendor after a subscription (time-based) license has expired, during which the software can still be used without penalty or disruption. This period is designed to give users time to renew or update their licenses without having to stop using the software immediately. The length of the grace period can vary depending on the software vendor and the specific license agreement but typically ranges from a few days to a few weeks. It's important to note that the grace period does not extend the license term, and users must still renew or update their licenses within the designated time frame to avoid any potential legal or financial consequences. Also, note that the renewal period starts when the prior term expires rather than extending from the end of the grace period.

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