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Product activation is a popular approach for securing software licenses. However, software developers need to consider all the requirements for a capable activation system, from the license models they’ll need to support to how they’ll deal with the corner-case customer environments.The basic activation process is typically as follows. Upon purchase the software vendor sends a unique product serial number to the user. When the user installs the application they are prompted to enter their product serial number. Their application connects to the vendor’s hosted license server over the Internet to confirm that this product serial number is valid and has not already been used to activate a license. It also obtains from the license server the license limits that apply to that user’s license, such as a time limit or enabling of product features. Finally it locks the license to the user’s system by reading certain machine parameters, such as the MAC address or hard disk ID, and encrypts the license limit and locking information in a file which is saved on the user’s system. Once activated the application interrogates that local encrypted file to perform its license check, so continues working on that user’s specific machine within the defined license limits with no further communication required with the vendor’s systems.Sounds simple enough… but here are the ten areas you need to consider as you select a product activation system.License modelsWhat are the license models you wish to offer across your target markets? Are there other models Marketing might want to offer next year? Here are some possibilities:

Disconnected systemsNot all computers have an Internet connection, so you need to consider how you will support your users who are on isolated corporate networks, or just can’t get a network connection from their laptop. The whole point of product activation is automation and convenience – you don’t want to have to set up phone support (during working hours, 24×7?, multi-lingual?) to help people without a network connection. Luckily, there are some solutions… if you pick the right system. For example:

SecurityThe idea is to protect your applications from hacking and ‘honest abuse’ (over-subscription by legitimate customers), so you need robust security. Here are some questions to consider:

Node-lockingThe general approach to preventing a license from simply being copied onto another system is to lock each license to your desired parameters of the target system, such as the MAC address, host ID, hard disk ID and so on.So far so good, but here are some node-locking questions to ask:

License RelocationThe fact of life is that users often want to move their license to a different system, months or maybe years after it is first activated. This appears straightforward, but there are some issues to consider:

License RevocationMaybe you don’t fully trust your customers, or perhaps you sell your product on credit, or on a monthly subscription, so might need to revoke a user’s license if they didn’t pay up or re-subscribe.

Reseller salesPerhaps you sell via resellers or OEMs now, or plan to do so. Maybe your sales department is looking for resellers overseas, or has it in their strategic plan? In that case, you’d better be ready to deal with the basic issue: how do you delegate order fulfillment (if desired) to your reseller, while still keeping track of the licenses they issue?

ExtensibilityWhile you may think that all your customers’ needs will be met with a product activation approach, what if that isn’t the case? Perhaps some users will not want any information to go out of their organization at all (often the case with some government and financial institutions).

Platform supportOf course you need to protect your application on all the computer platforms you support.

Back-office integration and infrastructureIf your business involves a large number of licenses, or you expect it to, you may want to automate license fulfillment.

Clearly not all of these questions will apply to all software vendors, however they hopefully provide food for thought, and suggest areas you should consider to ensure your product activation deployment is successful.