License requirements

You must have a license for IBM® Rational® Publishing Engine and licenses for all the product sources to use with Rational Publishing Engine.

Overview

  • You are not required to install a license server on every computer that is using Rational Publishing Engine. Install the license server on one server and distribute license keys to the Rational Publishing Engine users.
  • Rational Publishing Engine licenses are floating or user-based. Nodelocked licenses cannot be used.
  • Temporary licenses are available for evaluation purposes, but cannot be used with permanent user-based or floating licenses.

License usage

A license key is consumed in the following scenarios:
  • When one or more client applications is open on your computer, a license is consumed on your computer. The license is consumed the entire time the application is open.
  • For the DOORS Publish menu (add-in mode), a license is NOT consumed when the Launcher user interface is opened.
  • For Document Builder, a license is consumed when a user logs into the web user interface. A second license is consumed when a document generation is in progress. The second license is checked back in when the document generation is complete, and the first license is released when the user logs out.
  • When a remote document generation is started from the Rational Publishing Engine add-in through the user interface or the command line, a license is consumed on the server. The license is checked out when the remote document generation begins. Then the license is checked in after the document generation is complete.
Table 1. License usage
Rational Publishing Engine feature Open interface Generate a document - Local Generate document - Rational Publishing Engine Document Builder
Document Builder 1 license as long as the UI is open Not possible 1 additional license
Launcher 1 license as long as the UI is open No additional license 1 additional license
Document Studio 1 license as long as the UI is open No additional license 1 additional license
DOORS Publish menu 1 license as long as the UI is open 1 license consumed 1 additional license
DOORS menu option "File / Export / Document Generation" No license consumed No license consumed Not possible
Multiple client instances or local document generations started on the same computer consume a single license. Remote document generation consumes a second license. If you did not configure a license key, you are prompted to enter a license key to connect to the license server in both of these instances.

Licenses are configured with a timeout setting of 60 minutes unless a document generation job is in progress. If the Launcher or Document Studio application is open and unused for 60 minutes without a document generation job in progress, the license is checked back in. The user is prompted to either attempt to check the license out again or to close Rational Publishing Engine.

Document generation from within IBM products

Rational Publishing Engine does not consume a license for document generation requests within IBM products that incorporate the Rational Reporting for Document Generation component. This applies to both sample and custom templates within these products.

For example, you can design a template in Rational Publishing Engine Document Studio, deploy the template to Rational DOORS® Next Generation, and then perform the document generation from Rational DOORS Next Generation without consuming a license.

Example

You have 10 floating keys. With a floating key, users can share licenses from a common pool. 5 users are report designers, who are assigned the task of authoring and creating document templates. 10 other users can generate documents from the templates that are provided to them by the report authors. These 15 users share 10 license keys.


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