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An online license is designed for virtual and cloud environments but also works with on-premises installations. A locally stored license is tied to the computer it was activated on, which can cause problems with cloud services:
  • Two or more licenses are required to implement a failover switch.
  • If a virtual machine stops working, the administrator has to manually restore all relevant licenses.
  • If a virtual machine’s software is upgraded, or the machine moves to a different host, the license has to be reactivated.
An online license is not tied to a specific computer, which gives you more flexibility when optimizing hardware for large workloads. All online license parameter data is stored in the cloud on ABBYY servers.
You can also view an online license’s parameters in the License Manager, but only for the license currently in use on that computer.
The ABBYY FlexiCapture Licensing Service runs in fail-safe Microsoft Azure data centers with backup servers for continuous access. This high availability, together with offline use of online licenses for a set period, makes online licensing reliable.

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How an online license works

An online license lets you process a set number of pages over a set period (for example, a month or a year). Online licenses can be accessed from different computers. Periodically, the Licensing Server and the ABBYY Licensing Service connect to the Internet to synchronize the number of processed pages. The licensing service therefore keeps track of all pages processed under a single serial number across every computer tied to it.

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Licensing service synchronization

For online licensing to work, two licensing services must synchronize:
  • Licensing Server on the computer or local network where ABBYY FlexiCapture is installed
  • ABBYY FlexiCapture Licensing Service
For automatic synchronization, make sure you have an uninterrupted Internet connection and that connections to *.abbyy.com are allowed on port 443.
The Licensing Server is installed on your machine automatically with ABBYY FlexiCapture. It then exchanges data with the ABBYY Licensing Service at the intervals set in the license parameters.

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Synchronization parameters

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Transfer of data between the licensing services

The Licensing Server sends only license identification and page counter data to the ABBYY Licensing Service. This data is encrypted independently of your hardware and cannot be decrypted. Information ABBYY receives about the environment in which the online license is used is fully anonymized.

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Activate an online license

Activate online licenses with the Activation Wizard (ABBYY FlexiCapture 12 License Manager → Activate License…). For more information, see Activate a license.
The Licensing Server needs an Internet connection both to activate an online license and to run the program.
After activation, your license appears in the list of available licenses.
Screenshot of the Licenses list in the ABBYY FlexiCapture 12 License Manager showing an activated online license with its serial number, an Online license protection type, and a Network installation type.
An online license can be activated only once and cannot be deactivated.

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Use a single online license on several computers

You can access an online license from different computers, for example to deploy a cluster, migrate to a new environment, or restore your system after a failure. To do so, use the token generated for that license when it was activated. Tokens are encrypted for storage, and the number of computers that can access the license is not limited. To access a license on a different computer:
  1. Save the license token on the computer where the license was activated: select Service → Save Online Token… in ABBYY FlexiCapture 12 License Manager.
  2. Upload the token to the computer where you need access: select Service → Load Online Token… in ABBYY FlexiCapture 12 License Manager.
After the license appears in the list of available licenses, you can select it. A token is tied to all online licenses activated on that computer. So if you activate several licenses and save the token file, uploading it to another computer gives you access to all of them.
If the computer where you normally use the license fails, the only way to keep using that license is to load its token into the License Manager on another computer. Store your license token files securely, or you risk losing access to your licenses.

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Manage an online license using the command line

Manage an online license from the command line with the LicenseManager.Console.exe utility, provided with both ABBYY FlexiCapture Distributed and Standalone. Use it to activate an online license, upload license tokens, and save license tokens as files. For more information, see Manage your licenses using the command-line console.