Tekla Structures legacy on-premises licensing for administrators

Your company or organization should assign an administrator for the Tekla Structures on-premises license server.

The license server administrator's primary responsibilities are:

Install the Tekla license server.
Save the entitlement certificate on the license server computer and activate on-premises licenses on the server to make the licenses available for Tekla Structures users.
Inform users of the license server name and port number so that they can connect Tekla Structures to the server. See Preconfigure legacy on-premises license server settings for users.
If necessary, modify the firewall settings to allow licensing traffic.
Inform users of the license policy of the company and monitor license use.
If necessary, modify license access rights in the tekla.opt options file.
Export customized product ID files for license borrowing and deliver them to offline users.

Ways to distribute on-premises licenses to users

The Tekla Structures FlexNet licensing system offers several ways to distribute on-premises licenses to users. The way you distribute the licenses depends on the size of the company or organization, and the number of Tekla Structures users.

There are two ways to distribute on-premises licenses to users:

The licenses are available for multiple users on a common license server.
The licenses are activated on each user’s own computer.

You can also use a combination of license distribution methods. For example, you can activate one license on a separate computer and activate the rest of your licenses on a common license server.

You can also use subscriptions together with on-premises licenses. Users can change between the two licensing methods when they start Tekla Structures. For example, users can use an on-premises license at the office, but change to a subscription when they are outside the office. Using a subscription eliminates the need to borrow licenses or connect to the office through a VPN just to reserve a license.

This table compares the benefits and requirements of licenses that are activated on each user's computer and licenses that are activated on a common license server.


Licenses activated on each user's computer	Licenses activated on a common license server
No need for an assigned license server administrator. Each user manages the license server that is installed on the user's own computer.	Centralized maintaining and administration of licenses is needed. A license server administrator maintains the license server and manages the license use. Typically, there are a few Tekla Structures main users in a company. The main users are good candidates for license server administrators, because they are already familiar with Tekla Structures.
No need to manage license access rights. Each user activates only the licenses that are needed.	By default, all license configurations activated on the server are available for all Tekla Structures users. However, centralized access rights management is possible. The license server administrator can give different users access to different configurations. The license server administrator needs to modify the tekla.opt options file to manage the license access rights.
Tekla Structures can be used out of office. If the user's license is activated on a computer, license borrowing or a VPN connection is not needed.	Tekla Structures can be used out of office. A user needs to borrow a license from the common license server or use a VPN connection to the license server to use Tekla Structures out of office.
Licenses are used only by one person. Users have access only to the licenses that are activated on their own computer. If a user needs a license that is activated on another computer, the user needs to use the other computer. Another option is to deactivate licenses on one computer and activate them on another, which requires effort.	Licenses are checked out frequently by several users. When the licenses are activated on a common server, they are available for multiple users. The licenses are checked out from the license server only when they are needed. When a user does not need a license, the user closes Tekla Structures and the license becomes available for another user. Changing from using one license to another is simple.
	Rules of license usage Tekla Structures users should accept common rules or an internal company policy. The rules should contain regulations of managing the licenses, for example, who is allowed to borrow licenses. Usage of common rules minimizes the amount of conflicts in license management.

License server in your local area network

For organizations with many users, the recommended solution is to set up a common license server in your internal network. Using a common license server reduces the amount of work, gives your better visibility of license use, and lets you flexibly share licenses between users.

This illustration shows an example of using licenses that are activated on a common license server, with a mix of on-premises licenses and Tekla Structures subscriptions.

An administrator (main user or IT administrator) receives entitlement certificates for new and updated FlexNet licenses as email attachments.
The administrator activates and manages the FlexNet licenses in the Tekla License Administration Tool on the license server installed at your organization.

For successful activation, the system must be able to contact Trimble's license activation service.
The administrator adds users to your organization and allows access to your purchased Tekla Structures subscriptions in the Tekla Online Admin tool.

Exception: educational users must get their free Tekla Student subscription themselves at the Tekla Campus site.
Tekla Structures installations on the end-users' workstations reserve a license on the license server or in the cloud when a user starts Tekla Structures or joins Tekla Model Sharing. When the user stops using Tekla Structures, the license reservation is revoked.
- You can optionally allow users to borrow licenses for a set period of time, which allows the user to start Tekla Structures without network access to the license server. To borrow a license, the user must have the license borrow tool installed on their workstation.
- Tekla Structures subscriptions cannot be borrowed. Users must have internet access to start Tekla Structures with a subscription. For more information about subscriptions, see Manage Tekla subscriptions.

Tekla Structures holds licenses in trusted storage. This means that Tekla Structures does not support three-server redundancy, where licenses are held in license files. However, you can have any number of license servers, and use search paths for defining and finding them.

Using multiple license servers in one company

You might want to spread your license pool on several servers in your company. For example, you might have offices in many cities, with a license server at each office. You might also want to divide the license pool to minimize disruption caused by server downtime.

You do not have to activate all the licenses on the same license server even if they are on the same entitlement certificate. For example, you can activate one half of your licenses on one server and the other half of the licenses on another server. Or you can activate some licenses on a common server and the rest locally on each user’s computer. You can change the location of the licenses by deactivating them on one license server and activating on another.

In Tekla Structures, you can define two server addresses separated by a semicolon (;). This way, if there is a maintenance break on one of the servers, users can obtain the license from the other server.

Note:

Defining several license servers can slow down the starting of Tekla Structures. Therefore, we do not recommend defining more than two servers.

Configuration features for on-premises licenses

You have fine-grained control over the license use:

You can control license use based on the license type (enterprise/domestic) or Tekla Structures configuration.
You can define minimum and maximum numbers of licenses users/user groups have available.
You can allow or prevent license borrowing from named users/user groups.

The configurations can be done based on host addresses, individual user names or by user groups. See Modify on-premises license access rights (tekla.opt) for more information.

Additional information sources

In addition to Tekla Structures specific documentation, you can find useful information about the FlexNet system in the documents provided with the installation and in Tekla Downloads. The following FlexNet License Administration Guides by Flexera Software are generic guides that contain, for example, instructions for how to create user groups and manage access rights:

C:\Tekla\License\Server\fnp_LicAdmin.pdf
C:\Tekla\License\Server\LicenseAdministration.pdf