Types of activations

Rockwell Software products offer different activation options. Bound activations to a permanent device on a computer, such as a hard disk drive or Ethernet card, or to a removable device, such as a dongle.

Node-locked activations

An activation locked to a specific piece of computer hardware and used only on the computer to which it is locked. Examples of computer hardware used for node-locked activation include an Ethernet card, a hard disk drive, or a dongle. Not all product support node-locked activations. See your product documentation for information on what types of activation it supports.

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If a node-locked activation is assigned to a device that is no longer used, rehost the activation before you remove the device.

Concurrent activations

Concurrent activations require a network connection for all computers that are running

Rockwell Automation

software. The software automatically connects to a designated activation server on the network and retrieves an activation. Upon shutdown, the software automatically returns the activation to the pool of available activations.

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If a concurrent activation is assigned to a device that is no longer used, close

FactoryTalk Activation Manager

and log out from the computer before you remove the device to return the activation to the pool of available activations.

The activation server manages a set number of activations and serves these activations to any configured computer on the network.

Borrowed activations

Borrowed activations are concurrent activations that do not require a continuous network connection and expire after a specified amount of time (borrow term).

Check out a borrowed activation from a pool of activations managed by an activation server. Check out a borrowed activation to a dongle or a computer. Once checked out to the device, the device does not need to maintain connection to the network. When the time limit of the borrowed activation expires, the software is no longer activated on the device where the borrowed activation resides, and the activation automatically becomes available again from the server's activation pool. Borrowing also allows activations to be reserved from the activation pool to be used by a certain computer or group of computers.