Checking Out a Floating License

The VSA software has integrated check-out/check-in support for floating licenses. When floating licenses are used, the VSA software will check out license(s) for a measurement type when the measurement type is selected, and check it back in upon exiting the VSA instance.

This feature is only applicable for floating licenses and measurement extension types.

VSA Floating License Behavior

At startup, the VSA software checks license availability for measurement extension types. If the license(s) for a measurement type is available, the measurement type will be enabled in the Measurement Type menu and made available for checkout. Otherwise, it will be disabled.

After startup, when a user selects a measurement type, VSA will check the license availability again.

If the license is still available, the measurement selection is successful and the license is checked out. The user can start to analyze the measurement result. The license count is decreased by 1 per host PC.
Once a measurement type is selected, its license won't be released until the user exits the VSA software.
If a license is no longer available (all seats already checked out by other users), the measurement selection will fail and a license availability message will be shown. The measurement type will be disabled and a Refresh button () will appear so you can manually check license status until a license has been released by another user. When clicking the Refresh button, if a license is available, the measurement will be enabled and the Refresh button will disappear.

In the following picture, 5G NR and Pre-5G measurement types are enabled. Other measurement types are disabled due to the unavailability of license(s):

Checking the VSA's License Status

While the MeasSetup > Measurement Type menu shows the availability of floating licenses, it does not show whether the available licenses are checked to your instance of the VSA software. If you select an available measurement type, the license is checked out and remains checked out until you exit the VSA software. To help you keep track of which licenses are valid and have been checked out by the VSA software, you can check the status of your measurement extension licenses in the Licenses > Features tab. The following example looks at the license status of various measurement types.

The licenses highlighted below are installed and available for use, but they have not been checked out.

After selecting the modulation types, the licenses' status changes to "Valid," which means that the license is checked out and is valid based on the version number. The fields in the Version and Location columns are also updated.

The PathWave License Manager utility will also reflect changes in license status.