As far as I know each vendor has their own process for determining when a product will no longer function on a given LPAR. The function could be a key with a date/time in it. They could rely on the customer to renew and then they get a new key. If not, then the product could expire but continue to work. Or the product may just stop working. Each vendor has their own requirements on License keys.
I do not think you will find one specific way they all do it. They realize there are cleaver people who want to run their software without renewing or paying. So they work very hard to make sure it is very unlikely anyone can crack their logic that drives their product authorization process. They may all grab the clock, but how they use that to determine usage, is probably proprietary. Each vendor probably provides a process to see when the product will expire. There are no easy work arounds when vendors have keys that dictate when the product will stop working. Some vendors grab the clock at start up, then store it into some area of their code where you can not see it or alter it. Then use a key to see where the clock is and validate the product is still licensed to run. For example, SAS, provides me a SAS key. I can see the expiration date they are setting. I cannot change that. The SAS software is very smart and if I change to a new year without the appropriate payment and secret code to go with it, it will not work. The SAS license key is added to something else in the SAS software and that is not visible to me. So if it is 1 day to expiration. At day 0 the software stops working. But they do give you a 60 and 45 day warning. Some vendors will allow you to continue running so long as an IPL does not occur. If it does and the product is expired, then it will not be available after the IPL. Some vendors allow for a Disaster Recovery Key. One that can run during DR Testing or actual DR. Lizette > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Peter > Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2018 3:50 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Product license key program > > Hi > > How does the product license key works. Which program determines the > expiration of a product. > > This is a general question. > > Peter > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
