Licensing & How it Works
Introduction
The Ctrl license system has been designed to be as flexible as possible, allowing teams to collaboratively design and share workspace files without each having a license and to scale based on your project size.
Ctrl Engine is the main processing core of our system. It is responsible for running the workspaces you create within Ctrl Designer and syncronising all Ctrl Player interfaces on the local network. Ctrl Engine is the only element of the system that needs licensing.
Ctrl Engine is licensed based on the number of Entities (Inputs, Outputs Devices & Monitors) it handles and number of Ctrl Player incidences it should connect to on your network.
A license is required for Ctrl Engine to run your workspace. If unlicensed Ctrl Suite will only display its data outputs in the Engine console log and not output to physical devices.
Ctrl Designer & Player don’t require direct licensing
Designer is free to download and begin building workspaces, workspaces can be exported shared and collaborated on before deploying to a Ctrl Engine incidence to run. - This is ideal for collaboration.
Try before you buy
Download Ctrl Suite and use it for as long as you like to make sure it suits your project. The only restriction (until you have licensed Ctrl Engine) is that Engine will only display its outputs on the log view and not send data to your devices. If you want an unrestricted version to tinker with before making up your mind, Get in touch with our team and we’ll make it happen.
Installer? Reseller?
Feel you can add value and spread Ctrl as a specifier, installer or reseller Get in touch with our team.
Transferring licenses between machines with an internet connection
Flexibility is key.
When you purchase a license directly, or through a reseller, it appears in your ON LX Portal account.
You're able to assign your license to your machine running Engine, by logging into your ON LX account during the Engine Setup Process or assigning it from the license tab in the Engine Web UI. Providing your machine has internet access to talk to the ON LX server to do this.
If you want to deactivate your license from one machine, transfer to another, simply navigate to the Licenses tab in the Engine Web UI and select "de-activate" whilst connected to the internet. - Your license will be checked back into your ON LX Portal account ready to be deployed to another machine.
Once on the machine, the Ctrl Suite license will not need an internet connection until it is de-activated and checked back into the cloud.
But what if my installation doesn’t have an internet connection to license Ctrl Suite to begin with?
For flexibility, we recommend licensing using the internet to allow you to transfer your license wherever possible, (even if this means using mobile tethering to apply and remove your license). However, if you can't license Ctrl Suite using the internet, we've got you covered.
The ON LX Portal to convert your license from Cloud based to a Fixed Device License locked to a specific computer ready to be deployed on your installation or added to your hire fleet.
This license code is locked to the machine's hardware ID (generated using its CPU & GPU).
Converting a Cloud based license to a Fixed Device license is a one way process. It’s permanent and irrevocable.
Once you have converted your license to be Fixed Device, there's no way to change this back. It will be assigned to your specific computer forever.
If your computer is lost or stolen, your license is gone along with it. We will have no way of knowing what happened to it, and it’s at ON LX’s digression to replace it based on proof.
Does converting my license to Fixed Device stop me from being able to renew or add Entities to my license?
Not at all! You're still able to renew your license and add Entities through Ctrl Player incidences to expand your Engine's capabilities, the only limitation is that it’s fixed to the one device.
Simply make the purchase in the same way you would with a cloud license, then assign it to your machine by applying it to the offline code and re-generating your Fixed Device license for the machine.