Licence management

An deployment of the Caplin Platform is subject to a licence agreement, which is a set of licence terms and conditions that have been contractually agreed with Caplin Systems. Liberator plays a central role in the licencing scheme.

For information on installing Liberator licences, see Installing Liberator.

The licence file

All Caplin Platform server-side components, such as Liberator, Transformer, and off-the-shelf Integration Adapters, have an associated licence file, which they read when they start up. The licence file determines what features of the component are available at run time, according to the terms of the licence agreement.

Besides controlling various Liberator features, Liberator’s licence file also implements a user-based licencing scheme that determines how many end-users are allowed to access the Platform. This scheme’s based on the concept of a unique end-user, who is uniquely identified to Caplin Liberator by their login name. The licence fee’s based on the maximum number of unique end-users who are expected to use the Platform during a calendar month (the licence monitoring period).

Licensing models

A Liberator licence contains one or more licence categories, each of which specifies a limit (the licence end-user limit) on the number of unique end-users who can access your Platform installation:

  • Unique Users Licencing specifies the maximum number of unique end-users who are permitted to access the Platform within each monthly period.

  • Application Level Licencing specifies the maximum number of unique end-users who can access the Platform using a particular client application.

  • Asset Class (Trading Group) Licencing: If your Caplin Platform implementation supports financial trading in one or several different asset classes, the licence may be split into trading groups. A trading group identifies an asset class that may be traded and a client application that enables end-users to trade in that class. The licence specifies the maximum number of unique end-users who can trade within each trading group.

How Liberator licences are monitored

Liberator automatically monitors compliance to its licence terms while it’s running. The Liberator licence is supplied in a file that you install along with Liberator. When Liberator starts up, it reads the licence details from the file, including the details of the licence categories. The Liberator uses the licence information to determine whether it’s allowed to run, which licenced Liberator features are available, and which licence categories need to be monitored at run time.

At run time, Liberator monitors licence usage over a succession of intervals called licence monitoring periods (one calendar month). It records information about new end-users in a licence usage database (UUPP). When a new end-user logs in to Liberator to perform a particular licenced activity for the first time during the current licence monitoring period, Liberator records their login ID against the relevant licence category and increments a user count (the licence end-user count) for this licence category.

Over the licence monitoring period, Liberator constantly checks the licence end-user counts against the corresponding licence end-user limits, to detect whether the limits are being (or are likely to be) exceeded. As more unique end-users use the system, the licence end-user counts increase. If by the end of the licence monitoring period none of the licence end-user counts exceed the corresponding end-user limits, Liberator resets all the counts and the recording and monitoring process starts again for the next monitoring period.

The licence usage database (UUPP database)

Liberator records licence compliance data in a licence usage database called UUPP. UUPP means Unique Users Per (licence monitoring) Period.

The UUPP is reset at the beginning of each licence monitoring period (one calendar month). The licence monitoring process only begins a new monitoring period if usage limits have not been exceeded. To begin a new licence monitoring period after breaching usage limits, you must upgrade your licence.

When licence usage limits are approached

Liberator can be configured to issue a warning when a licence user count is approaching the limit defined in the licence (unique-users-usage-warn-level). Licence usage messages are posted on the Liberator status web page, in the Liberator event log, and to the JMX monitoring facility for viewing through a monitoring and management application, such as the Caplin Management Console.

Note that the Liberator status web page is only intended for use in development environments. It isn’t secure enough to use in production systems.

When licence usage limits are exceeded

When a usage limit is exceeded, there is a grace period of seven days before the limit is enforced. During the grace period, any number of new unique users may login. This minimises business disruption and gives you time to manage your Liberator licence.

Renewal of the licence monitoring period is temporarily suspended until you install a new licence. You can either download a new instance of your current licence, or purchase an upgraded licence with a higher usage limit.

If you do not install a new licence, then, following expiry of the grace period, the usage limit is strictly enforced. Users recorded as unique users before the usage limit was exceeded may continue to login; users recorded as unique users after the usage limit was exceeded may not login.

On installing a new licence, a new licence monitoring period will begin and the list of unique users permitted to login will reset.

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