IBM Support

Product Activation of Eclipse-based Rational products

Question & Answer


Question

Most Eclipse-based IBM Rational products offer two licensing options designed to help make deployment easier.

Cause

Effective license usage of Eclipse-based IBM Rational products

Answer

Overview

The v7.0 and later releases of the Rational® products listed below use a common activation scheme. This technote outlines the license options available to activate the various products and you get up and running as quickly as possible.

You can convert a trial (or evaluation) copy of the software to the production version of the same product without having to uninstall and reinstall the product. Additionally, if you own floating licenses of the products listed below you can now control usage of the products within your enterprise by using FLEXlm-based license keys as an optional feature (not available for Rational® Data Architect and Method Composer).


 

"Activation Kit" or FLEXlm floating license keys required by these Rational® products:

  • Rational® Application Developer (RAD)
  • Rational® Business Developer (RBD)
  • Rational® Data Architect (RDA) **
  • Rational® Functional Tester (RFT)
  • Rational® Manual Tester (RMT)
  • Rational® Method Composer (as of v7.5.1)
  • Rational® Performance Tester (RPT) base product
  • Rational® Software Architect (RSA)
  • Rational® Systems Developer (RSD)
  • Rational® Software Modeler (RSM)
  • Rational® Tester for SOA Quality
  • Rational® Developer for System I
  • Rational® Developer for System Z

** Rational® Data Architect support Activation Kits only. FLEXlm license keys are not offered with these products.

Activate your product after purchase!

The 7.0 and later trial (or evaluation) versions of the products listed above will expire 30 days after installation. Rational® Application Developer will expire 60 days after installation. You will need to activate your permanent product license to be able to use it after the expiration date of the trial license.

Activation if you own Authorized User licenses

If you purchased an Authorized User license of any of the products listed above, you simply need to obtain and install an "activation kit" for your product. This will convert the software license to a non-expiring version. Activation kits are product and version specific (they are not host-specific like the FLEXlm / FLEXnet license keys). This means if you own multiple licenses of one of the Eclipse-based products, you only need one activation kit and you can use it on any machine where the product is installed. For example, if you purchased two IBM Rational® Software Architect licenses, you only need to obtain one activation kit and then install that activation kit on the two machines that are running Rational® Software Architect.

If you ordered media for your (v7.0 or later) Eclipse-based product, you will find the activation kit on a CD in your software shipment. If you do not have a CD, you can obtain your activation kit by downloading it from your company's IBM Rational® License Key Center account, accessible via the IBM Support - Licensing web page. The activation kits can be found in the company account that made the actual license purchase. Each of the products listed above will have a unique activation kit with the naming convention of "Product Name <product version> Activation Kit", e.g. "IBM Rational® Software Architect v9.5 Activation Kit".

The activation kits for the most recent product releases can be downloaded in Passport Advantage Online from the software download pages of the company account that has the licenses in active maintenance.

After you obtained the activation kit, run the IBM Installation Manager to activate the license. Installing the permanent activation kit will allow the product to run without expiring. 

Activation if you own Floating licenses

If you purchased Floating licenses of the products listed above, you have a choice: you can either obtain and install an "activation kit" for each product and install it over the top of your product installation, as described above, or you can elect to use FLEXlm / FLEXnet license keys to manage concurrent usage. (FLEXlm / FLEXnet keys are not available for Rational® Data Architect and Method Composer).

1. If you wish to use Floating User license keys for any of the products listed above (including Rational®Asset Manager), it is recommended to have the most recent version of the IBM License Key Server installed. It is backward compatible. 

2. You can download the most recent version of the IBM License Key Server, your Rational® product(s) and their activation kits from the Passport Advantage Online account that holds the active maintenance agreement(s) of the Rational® product concerned. IBM products of which the maintenance agreement has expired will no longer be available to download. For the PA Online software download access requirements see technote Download location of IBM Rational® Software for Passport Advantage.


FLEXlm / FLEXnet license keys are managed through the IBM Rational® License Key Center, an on-line license key delivery service that makes it easy for you to generate and download your Rational® license keys. Refer to technote How to obtain license keys for IBM Rational® products for instructions on how to log into the License Key Center for more details. 

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Document Information

Modified date:
16 June 2020

UID

swg21250404