Pexip Infinity license installation and usage

Before you can use the Pexip Infinity platform to make calls, you must install appropriate licenses.

Note that in addition to having sufficient licenses, your deployment must also have sufficient capacity to support the number of calls being placed. For more information, see Capacity planning.

Types of licenses

The terms of your Pexip Infinity license can vary according to your licensing agreement. However, your license ultimately permits the use of the Pexip Infinity software, and additionally specifies:

• the total number of concurrent calls that can be made across the entire Pexip Infinity deployment
• the total number of Virtual Meeting Rooms and Virtual Auditoriums that can be configured at any one time
• whether the VMR Scheduling for Exchange feature is enabled
• the total number of Google Hangouts Meet access tokens you can configure.

Examples of the different types of licenses that can be installed

Concurrent calls

Before you can place calls to Pexip Infinity services (Virtual Meeting Room, Virtual Auditoriums, Virtual Receptions and the Pexip Distributed Gateway), you must install sufficient call licenses. Two types are available:

• port: the total number of concurrent video calls (allows video, audio, screen share, full motion HD presentations, images and PDF content sharing). Port licenses are mandatory.
• audio: the total number of concurrent audio-only calls (the audio-only participant can also send and receive images and PDF presentation content). Audio licenses are optional.

Any call licenses installed on Pexip Infinity prior to version 13 are treated as port licenses.

The Live view page (Status > Live View) lets you review current and historic usage charts showing a breakdown of participants by location, protocol, license type and the different conference types being hosted.

VMRs

The vmr license specifies the total number of Virtual Meeting Rooms plus Virtual Auditoriums that can be configured at any one time.

The VMR license was introduced in v15. This change does not affect customers on existing licenses who are upgrading to v15 or later — additional licenses are not required for these customers. If you have any further questions, please contact your Pexip authorized representative.

Scheduling

The scheduling license is optional and enables use of the VMR Scheduling for Exchange feature. If you are using this feature in your deployment, you must also have sufficient VMR licenses installed. For more information on this feature, see Integrating with Microsoft Exchange.

Google Hangouts Meet

The ghm license is optional and allows you to configure Google Hangouts Meet access tokens, and to provide gateway services into Hangouts Meet conferences. The ghm license specifies the total number of access tokens you can configure. Note that appropriate call licenses are also required for each gateway call that is placed into a Hangouts Meet conference.

See Integrating Google Hangouts Meet with Pexip Infinity for more information.

Call license allocation

When a Transcoding Conferencing Node receives a request from a participant to join a conference or place a call via the Pexip Distributed Gateway, it contacts the Management Node to see whether there is an appropriate license available. If so, the call is allowed and one concurrent call license is allocated to that participant for the duration of the call. When the call is terminated, the license is returned to the pool. In general, each participant consumes a single concurrent license, and no participant can consume more than one license at a time. Specifically:

• A port license is consumed when making any type of video call (Full HD, HD and SD).

• If your system includes audio licenses:

  • a participant making an audio-only call will consume an audio license
  • if a participant attempts to make an audio-only call, but all audio licenses are currently in use, a port license will be used instead, if one is available; otherwise the call will be rejected due to insufficient call licenses as normal. If a port license has been used, the audio-only call will use the port license for the duration of the call, even if audio licenses become available while the call is still in progress
  • if a participant who is making an audio-only call (and therefore consuming an audio license) escalates that call to a video call, a port license will be used, and the audio license will be returned to the pool. Likewise, if a video call becomes an audio-only call, an audio license will then be used and the port license will be returned to the pool.
• If your system only includes port licenses, then any type of call that normally requires an audio license will consume a port license.

• If you attempt to make a call that requires a port license and there are no port licenses currently available, but there is an audio license available:

  • the call will go ahead as an audio-only call, and consume an audio license
  • the participant will see an "insufficient video licenses" screen, and will be seen as an audio-only participant by the other conference participants
  • the call will not automatically escalate to video if a port license becomes available.
• Infinity Connect clients and all other endpoints consume one call license per connection when sending or receiving media (audio or video). They consume a single audio or port license as appropriate.
• Infinity Connect presentation and control-only participants do not consume a license, even when sending slides (images or PDF), sharing their screen, or receiving presentations.
• Skype for Business / Lync participants (connected directly to a VMR) who are only sending or receiving presentations consume an audio license.
• Gateway calls consume two licenses: one for the inbound leg of the call and one for the outbound leg (each license is audio or port as appropriate).
• Any participants who are directly connected to an externally-hosted conference, such as Google Hangouts Meet or a Skype for Business / Lync meeting, do not consume a call license (they report a license type of "Not required").
• Proxying Edge Nodes do not affect the call licensing requirements for an endpoint connection.

If a Conferencing Node is unable to contact the Management Node, the call will be permitted on the assumption that a license is available. After the Management Node has been out of contact for a grace period of 14 days, all calls will be rejected.

If there are no licenses available, or the existing license is not valid, the participant will be advised that they are not permitted to join the conference along with the reason why, and a corresponding message will appear in the support log.

For more information about license usage, contact your Pexip authorized support representative.

Insufficient licenses

If your Pexip Infinity system reports insufficient call licenses, this means that there are valid licenses installed on the system, but at the point at which a participant tried to join a conference, all of the existing call licenses were in use. To remedy this, either wait until one or more existing conferences have completed, thus freeing up some call licenses, or add more call licenses to your system.

In some cases your licenses may include an overdraft. This is intended to cover instances where the number of concurrent calls temporarily exceeds the number of available licenses.

Note that if your system includes port licenses and audio licenses, and you attempt to make a call that requires a port license and there are no port licenses currently available, but there is an audio license available, then the call will go ahead as an audio-only call and consume an audio license. See Call license allocation above for more information.

Invalid license

If your Pexip Infinity reports an invalid license, this could mean that:

• the license has not been activated
• the existing license has expired
• the existing license has become corrupt (this could occur, for example, if the Management Node reboots after an upgrade and comes back up on a different physical blade with a new MAC address).

Licenses become valid at 00:00:00 PST on the day they start and expire at 23:59:59 UTC on the day they expire.

Viewing existing licenses and current usage

To see the licenses that are installed on your system, and the number of licenses currently being consumed, go to Platform configuration > Licenses.

The top of the Licensing section states, for each type of license installed, how many concurrent licenses are currently being consumed out of the total available. Underneath are listed all the licenses that have been activated successfully and how many concurrent calls/VMRs they specify. You can select a license to see further information about it.

The Stored license request section lists any licenses that were not activated automatically, and are awaiting manual activation.

Adding licenses

To add a new license:

1. On the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface, go to Platform configuration > Licenses.
2. Select Add License.
3. In the License entitlement key field, enter the activation key provided by your authorized Pexip representative.
4. Leave the Manually activate checkbox clear (unless you have been instructed to select this option by your Pexip authorized support representative).
5. Select Save.

Pexip Infinity will automatically generate an XML file containing the license request (for more information, see Content of the license request XML file). It will then attempt to contact the Pexip licensing server and send it this file in order to activate the license. To enable this, you must have an active internet connection from the Management Node, and your firewall must be configured to allow a connection from the Management Node to pexip.flexnetoperations.com (64.14.29.85) on HTTPS (port 443).

• If the license is activated successfully, you will be returned to the Licensing page and will see the new license under the Licensing section.
• If the activation attempt is unsuccessful (for example, if the Management Node was unable to establish a connection to the Pexip licensing server), or you selected Manually activate, the license will be saved as a Stored license request. You must then activate it manually.

Moving a license (e.g. when redeploying a Management Node)

You may need to move a license from one Management Node to another. You would typically need to do this if you are redeploying a Management Node, such as when setting up a new test or demonstration environment, or changing the Management Node's IP address (see Moving, restoring or changing the IP address of the Management Node).

To move a license between Management Nodes, you must deactivate the existing license on your 'old' Management Node before reactivating it on the 'new' Management Node.

On the old Management Node:

1. Go to Platform configuration > Licenses.
2. Select the license you want to deactivate.
3. Make a note of the License entitlement key.
4. Select Return license.

The system will attempt to contact the Pexip licensing server to automatically deactivate the license:

• If successful, the license will no longer appear in the list of licenses.
• If unsuccessful, you must manually deactivate the license by following the same steps as described in Manually activating a stored license request.

On the new Management Node:

1. Go to Platform configuration > Licenses.
2. Select Add License.
3. In the License entitlement key field, enter the entitlement key from the 'old' Management Node that you noted previously.
4. Select Save.

The system will attempt to activate the license on the 'new' Management Node:

• If the license is activated successfully, you will be returned to the Licensing page and will see the new license under the Licensing section.
• If the activation attempt is unsuccessful (for example, if the Management Node was unable to establish a connection to the Pexip licensing server), or you selected Manually activate, the license will be saved as a Stored license request. You must then activate it manually.

Manually activating a stored license request

To manually activate a stored license request:

1. Go to Platform configuration > Licenses.

   The Stored license request section lists the licenses that were not able to be activated automatically, and are awaiting manual activation.

2. Select the license you wish to activate.
3. Select Export stored license request.

   This generates an XML file containing the request (for more information, see Content of the license request XML file).

4. Download the XML file and send it to your authorized Pexip representative for activation. They will respond with an XML activation file.
5. When you receive the XML file, go back to Platform configuration > Licenses, select the stored license request, and select Complete stored license request.
6. Browse to the location of the XML activation file you have received.
7. Select Save.

The license should now be activated and appear in the Licensing section.

Repairing a license

If a license becomes corrupt (for example if the Management Node MAC address has changed), a Repair trusted license storage button will appear under the license information. To reactivate the license, select Repair trusted license storage. This will normally resolve the issue automatically; in some circumstances the repair operation will result in a stored license request, in which case follow the procedure above for Manually activating a stored license request.

Content of the license request XML file

During both automatic and manual license activation, the same license request XML file is sent to the Pexip licensing server. The content of this file includes:

• the license request information (i.e. the detail of what is being requested)
• opaque machine identifiers (computed from various information sources, but not exposing the actual values).