Sassafras Licensing

Like all software, Sassafras products are licensed according to a particular metric that takes into account various measures of usage. For most licensing, Sassafras requires a license, or “seat”, for any client computer with recent activity related to Sassafras services, such as program management, computer login tracking, and software audits. The measure of “recent” depends on the type of service the computer has accessed, and various details of that service. The number of active client computers cannot exceed the number of seats supported by your KeyServer license.

Any computer that has the KeyAccess client software installed, and has at some point connected to KeyServer, is listed in the Computers table. Each computer is placed in one of four Login categories according to that computer's usage pattern and the specific configuration of the Sassafras Platform. Sassafras administrators can move computers between categories as necessary in order to manage the allocation of Sassafras's licensed seats.

Dedicated

Dedicated computers have access to all services. A Dedicated computer will not have its seat automatically reassigned, even if the computer has not actively used Sassafras's services. A computer will be moved into the Dedicated category if a Node Policy is assigned to it, or if an administrator manually moves the computer.

If an administrator moves a Dedicated computer to another Login type, and Node Policies assigned to that computer will be revoked. Usage of any such Policies will remain in the Usage Log, and Reports will reflect that usage. Furthermore, unless the computer is changed to Excluded, usage of the products associated with a Node Policy might again assign the policy, moving the computer back to the Dedicated category.

Leased

By default, computers are initially placed in the Leased category. Leased computers have an associated expiration time, after which they will be moved to the Dormant category. This expiration time is extended each time the computer accesses one of Sassafras's services. The length of the extension depends on the type of activity, and is encoded in the Sassafras license. Activity that can extend a lease expiration includes:

• Login by the client computer. The lease expiration will be extended by a few hours, so the computer will not use up a seat for very long if it does not access any other Sassafras service.
• Observed software usage. If software in an Observe Policy is used on the computer, the lease expiration will be extended by several days, since the computer is likely to continue to submit usage information to the Sassafras server, and thus be considered an active client. Once such usage stops, or if the client is moved out of the scope of all policies, it will still be a relatively short time until the computer's seat is made available to another computer.
• Managed software usage. If software in a Manage Policy is used on the computer, the lease expiration will be extended by at lease two weeks. For Lease Policies the expiration will extend two weeks beyond the lease expiration of the policy, and will continue to be extended as usage on the Policy continues. Assignment of a Node Policy moves the computer out of the Leased category, into Dedicated, effectively extending the lease indefinitely.
• Software audits. When a software audit is submitted by the client computer, the lease expiration will be extended by four weeks. If clients are scheduled to audit more frequently than every 4 weeks, the lease expiration will always be extended into the future. Typically this is the desired behavior — computers that are in active service will have up-to-date audit information, and will retain a seat on the server. Once a computer is decommissioned, its seat will be reclaimed after about a month. In cases where a one-time audit of a computer is needed, that computer can be set to audit once, and without an ongoing audit or subsequent software usage, its lease expiration will not be extended further.

Note that usage of ignored software does not affect the expiration of a Leased computer.

Dormant

Once a Leased computer has been inactive for a period of time, it is changed to Dormant. These computers do not count against the KeyServer client limit, as they are not currently making use of any KeyServer services. Dormant computers will not appear in Audit reports but historical software usage information will still be available in usage reports. If a Dormant computer makes a connection to KeyServer in order to report usage activity, to upload audit info, or to use managed software, it will automatically change back to Leased or Dedicated.

Excluded

Computers that are Excluded do not count against the KeyServer client limit. These computers cannot receive any services and no new information will be recorded by KeyServer. Like Dormant computers, Excluded computers will not appear in Audit reports but they may appear in usage reports if there is relevant historical usage data. Computer name and profile information remains available for reference from various other reports. Software usage will not be Managed or Observed on these computers, even if the same software is managed on other computers. Note: Keyed programs (legacy) are dependent on an interaction with KeyServer, so these simply will not run on excluded clients just as they will not run on computers that do not have the KeyAccess client software installed.