CodeMeter Cloud Lite - Licensing Usage Reporting

Many software vendors have already discovered Wibu-Systems’ suite of software products that can help protect intellectual property and control and manage software entitlements. Licenses and other sensitive information can be securely stored on highly sophisticated hardware, specially encrypted files, or remotely in a managed cloud environment.

Key to all these features is CodeMeter, which acts as the interface between the software to be protected and the information entitlement that is crucial to the software vendor business, securely held in CmContainers.

But there are instances where it is not possible or desirable to use CodeMeter. Some externally managed platforms (SaaS, mobile) might restrict the installation of sophisticated security software: after all, CodeMeter itself is an incredibly complex security solution that uses state of the art encryption and security features. There are also occasions where asset protection, a cornerstone of the CodeMeter skillset, is simply not required. CodeMeter Cloud Lite was written with these uses in mind.

CodeMeter Cloud Lite offers user-based licensing in the cloud. Licenses are created and delivered through CodeMeter License Central, but instead of activating or transferring the license in a CmContainer, it is allocated to a user in CodeMeter Cloud Lite.

CodeMeter Cloud Lite allows multiple heterogeneous devices to be used (for example, you could access your license on your computer in the morning and then on your mobile device in the afternoon) and offers a simple route to license management through the provision of a number of easy-to-use REST APIs.

REST Reporting API

Version 3.10 of CodeMeter Cloud Lite introduces a new suite of APIs to supply information on license usage reporting. It provides an interface through which information about the use of licenses can be queried. In addition to the purely technical view, it is also possible to enrich the data with product and license information from CodeMeter License Central. It utilizes a powerful filter mechanism to provide the key information to be queried and can provide two reporting views. Information flows are via JSON.

Reporting Query Filter

The query filter structure contains all the information about the report to be created. For example, to retrieve all entries within a specific time range, the following filter can be used:

There is a lot of flexibility contained in the filter. It is possible to also specify various license attributes such as firm code, product code, or feature code, or CodeMeter License Central attributes such as customer number, ticket id, and item id. When called, the reporting services will identify the specifically required information and return just this to the caller.

Reporting: License Based View

The LicenseUsage structure contains all information about the usage of a license, with the specific data focused through the query filter. As an example, if we consider the following request:

Then the following data might be returned after the call:

Reporting: Product Based View

The ProductUsage structure contains all information about the usage of a product from CodeMeter License Central. The return is essentially a list with a summary of all product-level license accesses for the specified filter options.

For example, the following options show all product uses of a customer:

The answer looks as follows:

To query the usage of a product of all customers the following options can be used:

For example, the result looks like this:

Easy Start

In modern environments, the idea of one size fits all is simply not appropriate. Software and hardware vendors must operate in increasingly complex environments, adhering to increasingly complex rules, and of course they themselves have wildly disparate requirements that need to be met. Where cutting edge asset protection is required, ensuring that key intellectual property is fully safeguarded when it leaves the direct control of the vendor, CodeMeter has for many years been the go-to mechanism for providing this: it has saved numerous companies huge amounts of money in preventing loss of revenue through piracy or reverse engineering. When this is not a requirement, either because IP protection is simply not needed or because specific environments do not allow such solutions, CodeMeter Cloud Lite has you covered.

The license-based view combined with the product based view of the new reporting API gives a compelling addition to the ever growing suite of REST APIs, flexible enough to allow the vendor to gather precisely the data they need.

To make this feature set as easy as possible to use, some sample applications are available in Java, C++, and C# to help you get up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible. Of course, Wibu-Systems’ Professional Services are always at hand to provide advice, implementation tips and tricks, and anything else the vendor needs to do what they do best.

 

KEYnote 46 – Edition Fall/Winter 2023