Group Licensing Key for Virtual Environment Application Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional licensing schemes for virtual environments are inflexible and cumbersome, particularly for hosting providers with thousands of clients and dynamic application installations, as they require manual license validation and are not suited for automated mass licensing.
Innovation Solution
A licensing system that detects affiliated applications, assigns a group licensing key, and uses license parameters to automatically validate and grant licenses, incorporating a Secret Key for encryption and authentication, ensuring authorized cloning and protection against unauthorized copying.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If conventional licensing schemes are used with one license per application, then license management is simple for single applications, but it becomes very complex and time-consuming when managing thousands of applications across multiple virtual environments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple individual application licenses into a single group license that covers multiple affiliated applications. The licensing module validates the group license once and automatically grants access to all affiliated applications, eliminating the need to validate each application license separately. This reduces management complexity while maintaining security through the Secret Key authentication mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The group license serves multiple functions simultaneously: it validates the licensing module, authenticates affiliated applications using Secret Keys, and grants access to multiple applications across different virtual environments. This universal license approach replaces numerous individual licenses, dramatically improving validation efficiency for hosts with thousands of applications.
2Reliability
If manual license validation is performed for each application, then individual license control is maintained, but the process becomes extremely time-consuming and inefficient for large-scale virtual environments
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary authentication by validating the licensing module's group license and Secret Key before granting access to multiple affiliated applications. This preliminary validation action ensures reliable license control while eliminating the need for repeated validation checks, significantly reducing the time required for license management in large-scale environments.
3Ease of operation
If Master License system is used for mass licensing, then licensing is simplified, but it does not work well with virtual environments as keys are generated based on IP range rather than application affiliation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements local quality by using Secret Keys that are specific to each affiliated application and the licensing module, rather than using a generic IP-based authentication. This allows the mass licensing system to adapt to virtual environments where applications need to be authenticated based on their affiliation relationships rather than network location, combining simplicity with virtual environment compatibility.
4Productivity
If group licensing is implemented without Secret Key authentication, then license distribution is simplified, but protection against unauthorized copying and piracy is weakened
Solution Approach 1:
The Secret Key acts as an intermediary authentication mechanism between the licensing module and affiliated applications. It enables efficient group license distribution while maintaining strong piracy protection, as the Secret Key verifies the authenticity of each application's affiliation claim without requiring complex individual license validations.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for managing licensing of virtual environment applications. A licensing module of a first installed virtual environment application detects installation of affiliated applications and gives them a group licensing key for passing it to the licensing server. The licensing server derives licensing parameters of the affiliated applications from the group key and gives the licenses to the affiliated applications, in case of successful validation. The licensing system provides protection from un-authorized copying of the applications. If an affiliated virtual environment application is copied (or moved) to another hardware node without its virtual environment, the licensing server will not give the license activation key to this virtual environment application.