Just discovered a very interesting difference with the new license activation methods in interplay. When using a cluster in the past the interplay client licenses (Key-J, Key-G, etc..) were stored inside the database on the cluster. So activating client licenses only needed to be done once on one of the nodes. 

That is no longer the case.  Now the license information needs to be added on each node. It works fine and is correctly documented but I wonder... shouldn't each node check its license configuration against the other node as to warn the user about inconsistencies?

I can see this going wrong when applying new updates and one forgetting the second node. Then after months when a failover occurs... BOOM!

Kalimera...

That's been the case for as long as I can remember... node locked/dongle keys are kept in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Avid Technology\Workgroup\Avid Workgroup Server\FeatureKeys\Permanent].

The license strings are stored in the registry (encrypted) & can be read by the LicenseKeyInfo tool in the c:\program files\Avid\Avid Interplay Engine(or Archive Engine)\Server folder.

Interesting wrinkle - you used to be able to export the reg key from node 1 at a windows/regedit level & write it to node 2 in earlier versions of interplay, but our experience is this broke somewhere between 2.7x and 3.5.  You now have to export the key and reimport it via the admin tool.  We had used this to address the very circumstance you mention. We now make part of the license-add SOP to export the key to a share any time you are adding new seats/licenses... because sometimes you can't failover the node just to add a license, & it may get missed after the next maintenance reboot. 

We also alternate between node1 & node2 on monthly restarts to ensure we have runtime on alternate node & visibility to this kind of sync concern.

Hope this helps,

Hi Steve,

Of course both engines always had their own dongles or activation files for the interplay server itself. But not for the client licenses. Those were centrally stored on the cluster AFAIK. And these licenses were always cumulative. Adding more client licenses to the system was only needed once on one node.

Hi Jeroen,

This does not match my experience & I've attached a screenshot showing the areas of interest for discussion. 

If you use notepad or textedit to open up the license key supplied by Avid when you buy more client licenses, (or export the key from interplay admin) - it shows up as a windows registry key with multiple "Feature Keys" - each of these coorespond to the key numbers shown in the license info tool, & the registry path is not a windows cluster-updatable path.  If you look at the registry during the license addition process (via the admin tool) - a new feature key is written on the active node in the registry - this is not automatically updated on the offline node.

Whenever we have added client licenses to one node, we have always had to add it to the other for it to be represented after failover.

One of my analysis scripts dumps this reg key to text along with a bunch of other stuff - if there are 8 feature keys on one server & only 7 on another, I know the add-to-offline-server step was missed. 

As an aside, I carried Avid's Interplay engineering pager from inception to 2011 (At NBC since), & this came up several times. I have always advised people to export their key after any license addition in the admin tool and to save to the database drive.  If you need it, it's available to the other node & can be added "hot".

Hope this helps,

- Steve

(screenshot below, or at http://i.imgur.com/x6v6Zyh.png - scroll bars available during my edit, but not in view, dongle ids redacted to protect the innocent)

Hi Steve,

For a moment you had me scared... Could I've doing this wrong all these years putting multiple TV stations in danger here... ???

So I checked if I was going nuts...

From the Interplay 2.7 administration guide page 93 & 94.

http://resources.avid.com/SupportFiles/attach/InterplayAdminGuide_V2_7.pdf

If you purchase additional licenses, the licenses are additive. For example, one license key with 2 Access and 2 Assist users and an additional license key with 2 Access and 3 Assist users yields a total of 4 Access and 5 Assist clients. A license for an Interplay Engine failover cluster includes two hardware IDs. You only need to install the license on one node of the cluster.

So I'm not going nuts yet... I hopefully have another 20 years before I need to be entered into a nursing home for elderly.