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Introduction

Centralised tracker licencing is a new feature available in Witness ClearWay™ and AdvanceGuard® from V4.8 and above. This significantly simplifies the process of licensing trackers and also removes any licencing considerations when swapping radar in and out on a site. The primary difference compared to the older system is that the tracker software licence is no longer tied to any single item of hardware, instead the licence is tied to the site. This enables us to install the site licence on as many radar or servers as required and as long as the total number of active radar does exceed the licence count for the site then everything will be automatically authorised.

In addition there is a central licence that sits on one or both of the primary servers and this enforces the site limit for concurrent, active trackers. These central licences are tied to the hardware to ensure they remain unique to their designated site.

For central licencing to work correctly the entire system has to be time synchronised, when using onboard tracking this requires that the radars have been configured with an NTP source.

Centralised licensing will not work on Witness versions older than V4.8. (e.g. Centralised license will not work on V4.7)

Contents

The definition of an active radar is one that is powered, connected to the Witness software and has been allocated a software tracker. Only an active radar can generate real-time target data. A non-active radar is one that is not part of a live system. For example a radar which is being stored offsite in case a rapid replacement is required, is a non-active radar.

Licencing Components

There are two tracker licencing components, both of which are deployed as part of the central Witness licence file:

Management Server Licence

This is the central part of the site licence. This component contains the tracker count and controls how many concurrent trackers can be deployed on the site. This component is linked to the hardware on which the Management Server is running using the MAC / Physical address of the active network adapter.

Note that each Management Server must have its own Witness licence file, so if using a fully redundant setup with two Management Severs, both must have access to Witness licence with the embedded central tracking licence. Note that each Witness licence file will need its own version of the Management Server Licence component that is the linked to the relevant MAC address of its host hardware server.

Tracker Licence

The tracker licence component is distributed to all radar or servers where the tracking software will run. This is just a single component and it is shared by all trackers. If additional, spare radar are available for a site then these will also require the same tracker licence component. This allows radar to be swapped as required and as long as the total number of active radar has not changed then no further action is required.

Deploying the Licences

Both the Management Server Licence and the Tracker Licence components are stored inside the Witness licence file. Once this file is loaded by the Management Server on system start-up all the components are automatically deployed to where they are needed. No further action is required to licence the trackers.

Requesting a Licence

In order to create the Witness licence, Navtech must know the total number of active radar that will be deployed on the site. In addition we must know the MAC address of one or both servers which will be hosting the Witness Management Server application.

A MAC address (or Physical address) is a unique identifier that is allocated to all network adapters inside a connected device. Everything that can connect to an Ethernet network has a MAC address, this includes PCs, servers, tablets and mobile phones. On Windows you can easily find your MAC address by looking at the properties of your active network connection.

When requesting a licence from Navtech you will need to provide us the following information so we can provide the correct tracker licencing components:

  • How many active radar are required

  • The MAC / Physical address of the Primary Management Server hardware

  • The MAC / Physical address of the Secondary Management Server hardware, if using a fully redundant configuration

Examples

Example 1

The customer is deploying 8 active radar all of the same model and is using only a single Management Server

In this scenario, the site will need:

  • A single Management Server Licence with a tracker limit of 8x radar.

  • A single Tracker Licence (for use on all radar).

    • Navtech will require the MAC / Physical address of the server that is hosting the Management Server app.

Example 2

The customer is deploying 10 active radar, 4 of one model, 6 of another, and has also purchased a spare radar for rapid replacement. The customer is not using redundancy.

In this scenario, the site will need:

  • A single Management Server Licence with a tracker limit of 10x radar.

  • A single Tracker Licence (for use on all radar, including the spare).

    • The models make no difference to the tracker licence

    • No additional licence is required for the hot spare but it can have the Tracker Licence installed

    • Navtech will require the MAC / Physical address of the server that is hosting the Management Server app.

Example 3

The customer is deploying 50 active radar, has two spares and is also using a fully redundant setup

In this scenario, the site will need:

  • Two (2x) Management Server Licences each with a tracker limit of 50x radar.

  • A single Tracker Licence (for use on all radar, including the spares).

    • No additional licence is required for the hot spares but they can have the Tracker Licence installed

    • Navtech will require the MAC / Physical address of both servers that are hosting the primary and secondary Management Server apps.

Adding Additional Radar

If the customer needs to expand the site by adding more active radar, then the software will require an updated Witness licence. The central Management Server Licence component needs to be updated with the new active tracker limit.

The requirements are:

  • A new Management Server Licence to support the new number of active radar on the site

  • You will not require a new Tracker Licence component. This will automatically be installed on any new active radar when they are connected to the software.

If using a redundant setup you will need to replace the Witness licence containing the new Management Server component on both servers hosting the Management Server app.

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