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Telium software uses “activation” to turn on the features you have paid for, and to prevent software theft (or pirating). In order to offer the greatest possible flexibility to customers, and minimize inconvenience, Telium offers four different activation types:
- Hardware Fingerprint: This type of activation is used by Microsoft Windows and is now the industry stadard. Telium’s software computes a fingerprint of your computer at the time of licensing, and that fingerprint is used to uniquely identify your computer. If someone copies the software and tries to run it on another computer then it will fail to start (since the fingerprints won’t match). This type of activation does not require any special hardware or access to the internet, and is suitable to emergency / public safety phone service operators, PBX’s on secure networks, stand alone physical servers, etc. Note that if your computer is not fingerprintable (eg: if you run the software inside a container or virtual machine) then this type of activation is not available to you. However, if you are running the Telium software in a commercial hosting environment (eg: AWS, Azure) then this option works perfectly (even though the cloud provider uses virtualization), and this option is ideal as Telium has worked with major hosting providers to ensure fingerprint consistency as your instance moves from host to host.
- USB Dongle: This type of activation uses a USB device (known as a “dongle”) which we courier to you after completing your purchase. Telium’s software will recognize the dongle plugged into a USB port and then start normally. If someone copies the software and tries to run it on another computer without the USB dongle present then it will fail to start. This type of activation is suitable to computing environments where hardware is not fingerprintable (eg: if your run the software inside a container or virtual machine), or where hardware changes frequently. You can still move your VM guest across different hosts by sharing your USB dongle over the network (eg: using usbip) – you do not need to plug the dongle into a particular host, but you can.
A USB Dongle looks similar to this:
- Cloud:This type of activation does not have any dependence on computing hardware or USB devices. Upon start the software will contact Telium’s servers in the cloud to request permission to run. So long as you are running only the number of licensed copies you have purchased then Telium’s servers will give permission to the software to start. This type of activation is suitable to computing environments where hardware is not fingerprintable (eg: if you run the software inside a container or virtual machine), or where hardware changes frequently. This type of activation is not suitable to emergency / public safety phone service operators since such environments are not permitted to depend on the internet/cloud in order to operate.
- Volume License Server: This type of activation does not have any dependence on computing hardware, USB devices, or the cloud. Upon start the software it will contact a Volume License Server (VLS) running in your data center to request permission to run. So long as you are running only the number of licensed copies you have purchased then the VLS will give permission to the software to start. This type of activation is best suited to customers running a large number of Telium products, such as Internet Telephone Service Providers (ITSP). Note that a Telium VLS must be purchased and installed separately.
Telium licenses are perpetual; in other words, they never expire. As a result you cannot change activation types after we have issued your license. (If we were to issue a second license with a different activation type then the second license could be used to run a second copy of the software.) Please be sure to select the right activation type when you initially request your license.
If you lose or damage the USB Dongle then you would have to purchase an entirely new license at full price. Be sure that software loss is included in your office fire/damage/theft insurance policy, so that you can replace your software in case of loss. The USB key contains a CPU with hacking detection (EAL 5+) and will lock itself after repeated hack attempts. A USB dongle which has been locked due to hacking is considered damaged and can only be replaced through purchase of an entirely new license at full price.
There are products which allow a Linux OS to connect to a USB dongle over a network/internet. Although such products (e.g. http://usbip.sourceforge.net/, https://www.eltima.com/share-usb-dongle-over-network.html) are not officially support by Telium, we have been told these work with our USB dongles.
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