The Sentinel RMS License System – Understanding Full and Upgrade PAKs

Applicability

Note that this article applies only to On-premises (perpetual) licences which use the Sentinel RMS License System.  This article does NOT apply to Subscription Licenses which use the Tekla Online License system.

Background

There are two types of PAK (Product Activation Key):

• FULL - issued when you first purchase a program

• UPGRADE - issued for subsequent releases which required a new license.

When an Upgrade PAK is activated a Warning message is always issued as shown in the picture below.

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This Warning is no cause for concern and is normal operation for an Upgrade PAK. You will recieve such PAKs for new versions when you have previously recieved your Full license and PAK for the version you purchased. Just ensure this is the same PC/ Server that you activated your Full PAK on, then click Yes.

If you want to move to a new PC/ Server this requires a new FULL PAK. For further guidance see the article; How do I move my perpetual (Sentinel RMS) license for Tekla Tedds and/or Tekla Structural Designer?

How can you tell if it is a FULL or UPGRADE PAK?

Your License Entitlement will state this. If you do not have access to this you can tell from the start numbers of the PAK as follows:

License Type       Full PAK                      Upgrade PAK
_______________________________________________

Local                    42333                          52333                         

Server                  42334                          52334

Difference between Full and Upgrade PAKs - Detail

PAKs for Analysis & Design programs (Tekla Structural Designer and Tekla Tedds) only activate a single specific version of the program. They do not activate the current version and all previous versions (unlike Tekla Structures Flexnet licenses).

In the Sentinel RMS Licensing system – which is used currently for A&D programs – there are what are called “License Features” and a PAK will contain and activate several of these.  Each License Feature will have a version number which is the internal version of the program it licenses to run. It will not license to run any other version. A program may require several License Features  in order to open and function fully.

You will see all the License Features that are required by a program when you open the License Manager from inside the program when it is open – as shown below. In Tekla Structural Designer this is via the Home Ribbon > License Manager. In Tekla Tedds it is via the Help tab of the Ribbon.

As shown in this picture below, Version 21 is the internal License Feature version number for Tekla Tedds 2019.  Version 20 is the internal license feature version number for Tekla Tedds 2018, and so on.

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The License Features look slightly different in the “Server Status” page of the License Server Manager as shown below, but again you can see the version number.   What you see here is the License Feature Name, rather than the Description (which is a bit more ‘user friendly’ and informative) which you see in the view above.

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The one and only exception to the rule discussed above is the “User” License Feature.

For Tekla Structural Designer, the name of this is “T.SD User 1”.  Any version of Tekla Structural Designer can use this “User” License Feature.

For Tekla Tedds the name of this is “T.TD User 1”*. Any version of Tekla Tedds can use this “User” License Feature.

There are two types of PAKs:

• FULL PAKS – these include all the version License Features AND the “User” License Feature

• UPGRADE PAKS - these include all the version License Features but do NOT include the “User” License Feature

The reason for this is so that it is not possible to exceed the number of licenses that you have purchased when running several versions of a program.

All versions share the “User” License feature and there will only be a fixed number of these ever.  So if you purchase say 5 licenses, you will only ever have 5x “User” License features activated on your license server and will only be able to run 5 simultaneous instances of the program – regardless of the version.

Hence when you first purchase a program you receive a FULL PAK for this version.   PAKs for subsequent versions will then always be UPGRADE PAKs.

Common Issues and Solutions

The most common issue is activating an Upgrade PAK on a different PC/ Server to the original FULL PAK – either by mistake, or because you want to move to a new license server.  

• If it was by mistake and you wish to continue with the original license server this requires a new UPGRADE PAK. Please request this from your vendor.

• If you wish to move to a new server this requires a new FULL PAK.  Please request this from your vendor.

  • ​If you wish to continue running other versions you will require PAKs for these too - please request these from your vendor.  These will be Upgrade PAKs since only one full PAK (for any version) is required.