Wondering what users on this forum think of the addition of portable licenses for Cyclone, I'm looking for some support so hopefully the software developers take this on board. At present we are only running a single node locked license of Cyclone but we are looking to expand and contemplating the benefit of network v node locked licenses. A huge limitation I see in the network license is the inability to take a license off the network for remote works (please excuse my ignorance if I am wrong but our supplier informs us this is the case). I have found the ability to "borrow" a network license and lock it to a machine for a temporary period (such as allowed by AutoCAD) is of major benefit when doing remote works, meetings with clients etc. We do use the viewer on a presentation laptop but find it can be rather limiting to really get the message across.
At present our single license is locked to a desktop which make transportation very difficult but for our future requirements I'm considering a dedicated processing laptop to expand capabilities (this does present limitations re specifications and $$$$ when compared to a desktop) but would prefer to run network licenses so we can run cyclone on multiple machines (and offices if possible) rather than be locked to specific computers.
Wondering how you guys do it? Any advice or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
Floating licenses work fine in the office and are ideal for setups with infrequent use of software across a number or workstations. For field work and presentations make sure all your Cyclone and Cloudworx modules are node locked. Since you can’t barrow Leica’s licenses you have less flexibility over all.
I ran into a floating licensing issue with the laptop used to operate our scanner. We were doing a demonstration for a local college in which we scanned the hall and pulled some of the features in to AutoCAD using a COE file. The laptop had a node locked Cyclone license and a floating cloudworx license. When in the hall the floating Cloudworx license was unable to find the flex server and caused Cyclone to fail to start. It appears Cloudworx relies on Cyclone for its licensing. It did not mater if AutoCAD was running or not. The temporary work around was to unplug the network cable, start cyclone and then plug the network cable back in before connecting to the scanner.
We decided AutoCAD and Cloudworx would be very rarely use wile scanning so we removed Cloudworx and its floating license from the laptop for our normal field work.
It is possible to load only the COE in / out in AutoCAD separately from Cloudworx. This will maintain a way to get things in to AutoCAD without Cloudworx.
If you need to use cyclone on another computer you can call / email Leica and have your Node Locked license transferred to a new network card MAC ID. This is what we did when our scanning laptop had to be serviced. It took a day or so to hear back from Leica. Not a quick or easy solution.
Dose your company hire a scanner and process the scans in house? It would be difficult having only one node locked version of Cyclone on a desktop.
Our company has two Node lock cyclone licenses (one for office one for Field work) and a few Cloudworx floating licenses. (All for office work)
"A huge limitation I see in the network license is the inability to take a license off the network for remote works (please excuse my ignorance if I am wrong but our supplier informs us this is the case)."
I assume we have the same supplier as you and they previously told us we could connect a network license via a VPN connection, however despite days of trying over several months and speaking to Leica support staff in Singapore and Germany we have had no luck in accessing the network license via VPN. I would recommend having a least one node locked license on a laptop so that you can work onsite with it. Or ask them for a demo network license to see if you can connect via VPN before you purchase.
We're using Cyclone network licences and cloudworx network licences with VPN WITHOUT problems! We're using "the green Bow "as VPN program, and it works well, as long as your internet connexion is good (even use on Wireless network)
The only problem we face, is when we try to use a license, and we're connected to the internet with a GSM / mobile phone.
I'm not the IT guy of my company, but I can tell you it works. What are the reasons, why it works with us and not with you, i can't tell you. What i know, is that the parammeters or the VPS program are VERY important, a specila company made the set up for us, to make it work.
We run a system whereby all our licences are stored on a server computer at the main office, into which you can dial into either locally, or over the internet.
Simply by telling the licence file on the client computer, the ip address of the router and the router in the office, where to forward the the information onto (ie, which local port ip the server is using), the licences can the used by anyone, anywhere, as long as they have internet access.
We finally got our VPN to work thanks to leica support in Germany. Not sure of all the technical details but I believe we had some ports open on our firewall open that had to be closed before the license would work.
We also use a VPN to a server license, however, Cyclone operates a bit slower over the VPN to server connection than in-house over our Ethernet. Interestingly, we had our node-locked license on a workstation that was on a bad Ethernet router (everytime the fax received a call, the internet connection would go out), whenever this happened Cyclone would also quit due to an "Interruption" in our network connection. So, I guess it's checking for license approval after most commands? Even when it's a node-locked license!
Sam wrote:We also use a VPN to a server license, however, Cyclone operates a bit slower over the VPN to server connection than in-house over our Ethernet.
If you are just getting the license over the VPN, cyclone should be behaving any differantly
