Network Licenses in a Mixed Network Environment

Cascading and dynamic licensing

Cascading (also referred to as license cascading or cascade licensing) and dynamic licensing resolve license allocation problems that occur when you use a mix of separately purchased Autodesk products.

License cascading is a feature of the Autodesk Network License manger. Its purpose is to:

• Allow access to a higher-value license when the lower-value licenses are in use.
• Allow multiple Autodesk products to share a single license.

For more information about cascading licensing:

• Refer to:

  License Sharing Behavior of Autodesk Manufacturing Products and Suites

  Understanding Cascade Licensing for Autodesk Products

• Search the Autodesk® Knowledge Base with the keywords “license cascading” or "cascade licensing" or "cascading licensing".

Dynamic licensing is a feature of Autodesk Inventor products. Its purpose is to consume a higher value Inventor license only when a command for the higher value Inventor license is invoked. Dynamic Licensing gives all users access to any level of functionality on an as needed basis.

For more information about dynamic licensing:

• Refer to Dynamic Licensing Behavior of Autodesk Manufacturing Products and Suites
• Search the Autodesk® Knowledge Base with the keywords “dynamic licensing.”

Note: Dynamic licensing is only available for network licensing users who have the higher-level functionality installed.

The license managers understand there is a product hierarchy. When a user accesses one of the products, the lowest available appropriate license is consumed. Each time a user exits one of the following purchased products, the license is released.

Important: Combining license files and support for previous versions.

• If two licenses contain an identical feature code of previous versions, the order of combination determines which one is consumed first. For example, Product Design Suite Premium 2016 and Product Design Suite Ultimate 2016 both contain the AutoCAD Electrical 2013 feature code. In the license file, when you combine the licenses make sure Premium is on top so that when you start AutoCAD Electrical 2013 it will take the Premium license first.
• If two licenses contain an identical feature code of the previous versions, the licenses must be issued on the same day. To resolve this issue you need to obtain a new package license file containing all the licenses (old and new) in a single file, issued on the same day. Refer to Previous Version Licenses

Licenses for Autodesk Inventor that Run on Client Workstations

Dynamic licensing example

Consider the following example: You have 2 Inventor Professional 2016 licenses and 2 Inventor 2016 licenses on your network. When the first user starts Inventor Professional 2016, the license manager will use the Inventor 2016 license. If a second user starts Inventor Professional 2016, the other Inventor 2016 license will be used. If one of the users invokes an Inventor Professional 2016 command, then an Inventor Professional 2016 license will be consumed and an Inventor 2016 license will become available.

We recommend that you install Autodesk Inventor Professional 2016 on all seats. Dynamic Licensing gives all users access to any level of functionality on an as needed basis for network license users who have the higher-level functionality installed.

Dynamic licensing best practices

If you know in advance that a specific user needs access to one specific application (for example, Autodesk Inventor) then you install only that application on the user computer. The installation participates in the complete license pool.

If different people need access to different Inventor products at different times, install the highest value product on all workstations. Although this installation is recommended, it is not required.

Licenses are returned to the license pool when the user closes the application. Instruct users to close Inventor when finished using it so that someone else can take advantage of the license or configure the server to reclaim the idle client licenses.

For more information about dynamic licensing, search the Autodesk® Knowledge Base with the keywords “dynamic licensing.”

Autodesk Inventor usage is based on the following user activity:

One Inventor shortcut is installed on the desktop. This single Inventor shortcut allows access to all purchased Inventor products. Inventor dynamically moves up to a higher license when a user clicks a command or enters an environment that requires a higher level license than is currently active.