License activation (explained)

Your SLC must be registered prior to the installation (see Register Software License Code). Your different licenses connected with your SLCs must be activated for the installed XProtect VMS and XProtect extensions to work and the individual hardware devices to be able to send data to the system. For an overview of all XProtect license types, see License types.

There are several ways of activating licenses. All of them are available from the License Information window. The best way of activating depends on your organization's policies and whether your management server has access to the internet or not. To learn how to activate licenses, see Activate your licenses.

After the initial license activation of your XProtect VMS, you do not have to activate device licenses every time you add a hardware device with a camera because of built-in flexibilities to the XProtect licensing system. For more information about these flexibilities, see Grace period for license activation (explained) and Device changes without activation (explained).

Automatic license activation (explained)

For easy maintenance and flexibility - and when your organization's policies permit it - Milestone recommends that you enable automatic license activation. Automatic license activation requires that the management server is online. For how to enable automatic license activation, see Enable automatic license activation.

Benefits of enabling automatic license activation

  • The system activates your hardware devices a few minutes after you have added, removed, or replaced hardware devices or made other changes that affect the use of your licenses. Therefore, you only seldom must manually start a license activation. See the few exceptions in When manual license activation is still required.

  • The used number of device changes without activation is always zero.

  • No hardware devices are within a grace period and at risk of expiring.

  • If one of your base licenses expires within a period of 14 days, your XProtect system will also - as an extra precaution - automatically try to activate your licenses every night.

When manual license activation is still required

If you make the following changes to your system, manual license activation is required.

Grace period for license activation (explained)

When you have installed your VMS and added devices (hardware devices, Milestone Interconnect cameras, or door licenses), the devices run in a 30-day grace period if you have decided not to enable automatic license activation. Before the end of the 30-day grace period and if you do not have more device changes without activation left, you must activate your licenses, or your devices will stop sending video to your surveillance system.

Device changes without activation (explained)

The functionality device changes without activation gives built-in flexibility to the XProtect licensing system. So even if you have decided to activate licenses manually, you do not necessarily have to activate licenses every time you add or remove hardware devices.

The number of device changes without activation differs from installation to installation and is calculated based on several variables. For a detailed description, see Calculation of available number of device changes without activation (explained).

One year after your last license activation, your used number of device changes without activation is automatically reset to zero. Once the reset happens, you can continue to add and replace hardware devices without activating the licenses.

If your surveillance system is offline for longer periods of time, for example in cases with a surveillance system on a ship on a long cruise or a surveillance system in a very remote place without any Internet access, you can contact your Milestone reseller and request a higher number of device changes without activation.

You must explain why you think you qualify for a higher number of device changes without activation. Milestone decides each request on an individual basis. Should you be granted a higher number of device changes without activation, you must activate your licenses to register the higher number on your XProtect system.

Calculation of available number of device changes without activation (explained)

The available number of device changes without activation is calculated based on three variables. If you have several installations of the Milestone software, the variables apply to each of them separately. The variables are:

  • C% that is a fixed percentage of the total amount of activated licenses
  • Cmin that is a fixed minimum value of the number of device changes without activation
  • Cmax that is a fixed maximum value of the number of devices changes without activation

The number of device changes without activation can never be lower than the Cmin value or higher than the Cmax value. The calculated value based on the C% variable changes according to how many activated devices you have on each installation in your system. Devices added with device changes without activation are not counted as activated by the C% variable.

Milestone defines the values of all three variables and the values are subject to change without notification. The values of the variables differ depending on the product.

Examples based on C% = 15%, Cmin = 10 and Cmax =100

You buy 100 device licenses. You then add 100 cameras to the system. Unless you have enabled automatic license activation, the number of device changes without activation is still zero. You activate your licenses and have now 15 device changes without activation.

You buy 100 device licenses. You then add 100 cameras to the system and activate the licenses. Your number of device changes without activation is now 15. You then decide to delete a hardware device from the system. You now have 99 activated devices and the number of device changes without activation has dropped to 14.

You buy 1000 device licenses. You then add 1000 cameras and activates the licenses. Your device changes without activation are now 100. According to the C% variable, you should now have had 150 device changes without activation, but the Cmax variable only allows you to have 100 device changes without activation.

You buy 10 device licenses. You then add 10 cameras to the system and activates the licenses. Your number of device changes without activation is now 10 because of the Cmin variable. If the number was only calculated based on the C% variable, you would only have had 1 (15% of 10 = 1.5 rounded off to 1).

You buy 115 device licenses. You then add 100 cameras to the system and activate the licenses. Your device changes without activation is now 15. You add another 15 cameras without activating them, using 15 out of 15 of your device changes without activation. You now remove 50 of the cameras from the system and the number of device changes without activation goes down to 7. This means that 8 of the cameras previously added within the 15 device changes without activation go into a grace period. You now add 50 new cameras. Because you activated 100 cameras on the system last time you activated the licenses, the number of device changes without activation goes back to 15 and the 8 cameras, that were moved into a grace period, move back as device changes without activation. The 50 new cameras go into a grace period.