Licensing Infohub
How Infohub licences are bound to an instance, and the difference between licence expiry and maintenance expiry.
An Infohub licence authorises a particular Infohub instance to run a particular set of product parts. Two things about the model are worth understanding up front, because both cause avoidable surprises: a licence is bound to an instance, and it carries two independent expiry dates.
Instance binding#
Every Infohub instance has an Instance ID. A licence is issued against that Instance ID and is not portable to another instance.
The practical consequences:
- Restoring a production database onto a test server does not carry a usable licence with it.
- Rebuilding an instance from scratch produces a new Instance ID and needs a new licence.
- A licence names the product and the specific product part it covers, so an Infohub instance can be licensed for some capabilities and not others.
Plan licensing before you clone an environment. The most common licensing call is a test or DR environment created by restoring a production database, which then will not run. Request licences for non-production instances as part of setting them up, rather than after they fail to start.
Two expiry dates#
An Infohub licence carries a licence expiry and a maintenance expiry, and they mean different things.
| Date | What it controls | When it lapses |
|---|---|---|
| Licence expiry | Whether Infohub runs at all | Infohub stops being licensed to operate |
| Maintenance expiry | Whether you are entitled to new versions and support | Infohub keeps running; you cannot upgrade to a version released after the date |
A perpetual licence has no licence expiry but does have a maintenance date. That is the usual arrangement, and it means an upgrade — not day-to-day operation — is what surfaces a lapsed maintenance agreement.
Check maintenance before planning an upgrade. Because operation and upgrade entitlement are separate, an instance can run happily for years and then refuse a new version. Confirm maintenance status before scheduling an upgrade window, not during it.
The Licence Manager#
Infohub includes a Licence Manager utility for viewing and managing licences on an instance. Use it to:
- Read the current Instance ID, which is what you supply when requesting a licence
- See which product parts are licensed
- Check both expiry dates
- Apply a licence you have been issued
The licence file itself is installed alongside the Infohub program files, under %ProgramFiles%\Flow Software\Flow.
Requesting a licence#
- Install Infohub and create the database, so the instance exists.
- Open the Licence Manager and note the Instance ID.
- Send the Instance ID to Flow Software with the details of what the instance is for — production, test, development, or disaster recovery.
- Apply the licence you receive.
- Restart the
Flow Bootstrapservice so components pick it up.
Symptoms of a licence problem#
Licensing failures rarely announce themselves as "licence". They tend to look like this:
| Symptom | Check |
|---|---|
| Bootstrap starts but no service objects run | Licence expired, or no licence for this Instance ID |
| A restored copy of production does nothing | Instance ID changed with the new instance — needs its own licence |
| A capability is missing from Flow Config | That product part is not licensed |
| An upgrade refuses to proceed | Maintenance expiry predates the version you are installing |
| Everything worked until a specific date | Licence or maintenance expiry reached |
The Flow event log is where licence refusals are recorded. When components will not start and the configuration looks correct, read it before investigating anything else.
Licensing in multi-site deployments#
Each Infohub instance needs its own licence, including each site in a hub-and-spoke deployment and the central instance that receives from them. Budget and request them together — a rollout that licenses the central instance and forgets the sites stalls at exactly the wrong moment.
Non-production environments — test, staging, training, disaster recovery — are separate instances and each needs its own licence. Discuss those with Flow Software when arranging the production licence, so the whole estate is covered in one conversation.