Understand licensing for NVivo Server

NVivo Server 10

This topic is about licenses for NVivo Server. To work with NVivo projects stored on a server, your organization needs licenses for both NVivo for Windows and NVivo Server. For more information about licenses for NVivo 10 for Windows refer to Understand licensing for NVivo.

In this topic

Overview of NVivo Server licensing

NVivo for Windows and NVivo Server are separate software products. To work with NVivo projects stored on a server, your organization needs licenses for both NVivo for Windows and NVivo Server.

A license key is required to install NVivo Server on the server. In addition, each client machine needs an NVivo for Windows license key.

NVivo Server licensing arrangements are tailored to meet your organization's needs. The licensing is based on the number of users and the hardware that NVivo Server will be installed on.

When users connect to a server project, they consume Client Access Licenses (CALs). You can choose to allocate license to specific users, or to concurrent (floating) users, or a combination of both.

For information about client licensing, refer to Understand licensing for NVivo.

Understand how server licenses work

Depending on the terms of purchase, your NVivo Server license key:

  • Entitles you to run NVivo Server on a server with a specific number of processor cores.

  • Entitles you to a number of Client Access Licenses (CALs) that allow users to access server projects.

You must purchase at least one processor license. NVivo Server processor licenses are based on quad-core processors and the number of licenses you require is determined by the number of cores allocated to the server.  You should discuss your processor licensing needs with QSR International. If you upgrade your hardware, you may need to purchase additional processor licenses.

NOTE  The processor licensing information above applies to NVivo Server 10 R2. If you are using NVivo Server 10, processor licenses are based on the number of CPUs allocated to the server.

NVivo Server supports multiple active license keys, as shown in the example below:

Manage Client Access Licenses (CALs)

Depending on the terms of purchase, your NVivo Server license entitles you to a number of Client Access Licences (CALs) that allow users to access server projects. This section describes

Client Access Licenses (CALs) can be distributed among:

  • Named users—specified user accounts (not groups) that have 1 CAL reserved for their specific use. These user accounts have a guaranteed server connection at all times.

  • Concurrent users—user accounts that do not have any CALs reserved for their use.  These user accounts require 3 CALs each. Concurrent or 'floating' users connect to NVivo Server on a first-come, first-served basis. A concurrent user can only connect if there are available CALs.  

For example, if your license includes 12 CALs, you could allocate 3

 

 

Or you could leave all CALs unallocated and allow 4 concurrent users to connect at the same time

 

 

When allocating CALs you may want to consider the following:

  • CALs are consumed when users open projects and are released when projects are closed.

  • Users cannot conserve CALs by logging on to multiple machines using the same 'named' user account—a named user consumes 1 CAL on the first machine and 3 CALs on any subsequent machine.

  • To maximize the use of your CALs, the number of licenses available for concurrent users should be a multiple of three (3, 6, 9,12 and so on).  

Unless you allocate Client Access Licenses (CALs) to specific users, access to server projects is on a first-come, first-served basis.

If specific users need guaranteed access to a project (Project Owners for example) then you can allocate them a 'named' user license via the NVivo Server Manager—refer to NVivo Server Help for detailed instructions.