InishTech Software Licensing and Protection (SLP) Services provide flexible licensing functionality to protect part or all of your application from use until it is activated. SLP Services support a variety of licensing configurations including:
- Creation of time limited trials to create try-and-buy applications
- Creation of multiple versions of your application within a single executable - for example Silver, Gold and Platinum versions
- Create subscription based licenses
- Utility based pricing to charge users based on what they use
- License only specific parts and features of your application
- Create custom licenses on a per-customer basis
SLP Services are available as both an online service and as a standalone server. The Online Service provides 24x7 access to an online portal and is futher split down into Standard, Professional and Enterprise editions. The Standard edition supports 1 product/permutation, the Professional edition supports 5 products/permutations and comes with a dynamic licensing API and the Enterprise edition supports 10 products/permutations, comes with a dynamic licensing API and a back office API. The SLP Server is a separate, on-premise solution designed for larger ISVs and those looking to extensively customise their installation.
SLP Services allow you to license any native (e.g. C++) or .NET applications, externalising license management and reducing the requirement to produce separate builds of each edition and configuration of your product. SLP Services also support the freely available Mono runtime for cross-platform licensing functionality. Note that the source code protection capabilities are only available for .NET applications.
Product Variants - Software Licensing and Protection (SLP) Services
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Other product variants may be available, please contact us or request a call back if you cannot see what you are looking for.
Documents & Downloads
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» InishTech Case Study - Mindjet
» InishTech Case Study - Softedge Systems
» InishTech SLP Online Service Enterprise Edition Datasheet
» InishTech SLP Online Service Professional Edition Datasheet
» InishTech SLP Online Service Standard Edition Datasheet
» InishTech SLP Server Enterprise Datasheet
» InishTech SLP Server Professional Datasheet
» InishTech SLP Services Technology Overview Whitepaper
New Features
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InishTech SLP Online Services 3.0
The latest release of SLP Services includes improved platform support and an updated Web Services API.
- Back office integration - the updated Web Service API can provide product, SKU, license, billing and usage information to a back-end system (dependant on edition purchased)
- Dynamic license creation - programmatically create/update license details for individual customer requirements
- Updated user interface enhances the user experience and provides intuitive navigation
- Supports Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Supports 64-bit operating systems (XP, Vista, Windows Server)
Features
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Licensing Options
The SLP Services licensing options are highly sophisticated and flexible. Licenses can have a variety of different limits including:
- Dates - a license can be set to expire after a set number of days or have an explicit start and end date
- Usage - limit the number of times a feature can be used
- Activations - activation can be automatic over the internet or manually. Activations can be limited and can be optionally deactivated for customers moving machines
- Machine - limit licenses to run on only one machine and prevent activation on a virtual machine
License Monitoring
Monitor how often a protected feature of a licensed application is used. This information can provide valuable insight - including discovering the most popular features of an application to direct future development.
Licensing Lifecycle
Product and Feature definitions
Define your products and features on the SLP portal. This could be a fairly precise definition like 'Custom Data Transformation'; or a broader set of functionality like 'File Management'. Combined sets of features can be grouped together and form the basis of 'virtual SKUs' - e.g. you could produce a demo SKU, a Standard SKU and an Enterprise SKU based on feature sets.
Code protection
In order to enable code protection it is necessary to bind features to code. The binding of feature to code is central to the SLP Services licensing enforcement. This is accomplished by using the SLP Services Code Protector – you do not have to modify your code to do this. The SVM (Secure Virtual Machine) will check that the license permits a feature to be used before executing the specific piece of protected code associated with that feature.
Create licenses
The SLP portal provides a powerful set of tools to create licenses including selecting a specific feature set, setting if the license is commercial or non-commercial, setting a number of options giving precise control over how the features can be used, if statistics about their usage is reported and if there are limits on usage or how the license can be renewed.
Activation
An activation key is required to activate part or all of the product. The application will connect with the SLP portal, verify a valid key and return a digitally signed license file. The activation screen on an application can be completely customised. Post activation it is easy for the SLP portal administrator to add additional features to a license or extend the duration of a license.
Web Service API
The SLP Services Web API allows you to integrate your license management with your CRM and ERP systems. The API allows you to generate either standard or unique customer licenses, dynamically manage trials, subscriptions and renewals, integrate with your own billing systems and provide product usage data to your own back-end systems.
Note that the functionality of the API is based on the edition purchased. Please see the editions section for a comparison.
Editions
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InishTech SLP Online Service Standard
InishTech SLP Online Service Standard supports perpetual or subscription based licensing scenarios, comes with 24x7 access to the SLP Service portal and includes a Web Service API that can create licenses from standard SKUs. This edition has 1 product/permutation included as standard.
InishTech SLP Online Service Professional
The Professional edition contains all the functionality of the Standard edition, plus an enhanced Web Service API that can create unique and dynamic licenses based on specific customer requirements and can automatically generate licenses, for example, from processed orders received on an e-commerce website. This edition has 5 product/permutations included as standard.
InishTech SLP Online Service Enterprise
The Enterprise edition contains all the functionality of the Professional edition, plus a comprehensive Web Service API and Back Office API that can automatically provide information to your own billing systems and gather product usage and deployment data that can be integrated into your own back-end systems. This edition has 10 product/permutations included as standard.
InishTech SLP Server
On-premise solution designed for larger organisations and customers looking to extensively customise their installation. The Professional edition has capacity for an unlimited number of product/permutations with 5 included as standard and includes a Web Service API that supports creation of license templates dynamically. The Enterprise edition has capacity for an unlimited number of product/permutations with 10 included as standard. Additionally, the Web Service API supports integration of license and customer information into back-end systems.
Note that support for additional products can be added separately, for any edition, at a small additional annual cost.
For further information on each edition, please see the documents and downloads section.