License descriptions

You can understand the types of licenses available for the product and choose the correct license to run tests.

IBM® Rational® Functional Tester requires two types of licenses: product activation and runtime licenses. You need product activation licenses such as activation kits, or floating/token licenses to run the product. Runtime licenses are unique to Rational® Functional Tester and they consist of virtual tester pack floating license keys.

As a purchaser of an IBM® Rational® software product, you can choose from the following type of product licenses:

You manage product activation by using Installation Manager. You manage runtime licenses by using IBM® Rational® License Key Administrator.

The best choice of licenses for your organization depends upon how many people use the product, how often they require access, and how you prefer to purchase software.

Activation kits

Activation kits are product and version specific (they are not host-specific). You simply need to obtain and install an "activation kit" for your product. The activation kits for the most recent product releases can be downloaded in Passport Advantage Online from the software download pages of the company account that has the licenses in active maintenance. For more information, refer to Importing a product activation kit.

Floating licenses

An IBM® Rational® Floating license is a license for a single software product that can be shared among multiple team members; however, the total number of concurrent users cannot exceed the number of floating licenses you purchase. For example, if you purchase one floating license for a Rational® software product, any user in your organization can use the product at any given time. Another person who wants to access the product must wait until the current user logs off.

To use floating licenses, you must obtain floating license keys and install them on a Rational® License Server. The server responds to user requests for access to the license keys; the server grants access to the number of concurrent users that equals the number of licenses the organization purchased. For more information about the Rational® License Server, see Managing licenses with Rational® Common Licensing.

Floating license enforcement provides these benefits:
  • License compliance enforcement throughout the organization
  • Fewer license purchases
  • License keys served for IBM® Rational® Team Unifying and IBM® Rational® Software Delivery Platform desktop products from the same license server
  • Some versions of Rational® products require an upgraded version of the Rational® License Server. See this support article for license upgrade information: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21250404

Token licenses

The token-based license model means that you can buy a certain number of token licenses. If you use a Rational® tool that checks out a feature that is token-based, the feature line in the license file specifies the number of tokens that are checked out. Token-based licenses can only be used with floating licenses. For more details about token licensing, contact your local IBM® marketing representative.

Runtime licenses – Virtual tester pack floating license keys

In addition to product activation, you need runtime licensing when you run AFT suites or parallel execution of tests on more than 5 channels. Runtime licensing consists of the virtual tester pack floating license keys. You can check out these keys from the same Rational® License Server that you use for floating license product activation.