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Volume licensing is the activation of software on many computers in the same domain or location, commonly used in business, education, and government. It saves time and money by using a single serial number, eliminates physical copies, and lowers the price per software seat. However, unauthorized use can result in software piracy, so organizations carefully control their volume license keys.
Volume licensing is the licensing or activation of software on a large number of computers. These machines are most likely in the same domain or physical location. It is most commonly encountered when the software is used in business, education or government and is useful whenever many software licenses are needed.
Volume licensing is offered by software programmers and used by their customers for a variety of reasons. First, it’s typically not limited to specific types of software. Instead, it licenses many different types of software, including content creation programs, software that helps computers be more secure, server-side programs, and operating systems.
Second, the time required to enter, activate, and track separate license keys for multiple computers can be considerable. To avoid the problems associated with multiple license numbers, a single volume license serial number is used instead. This, in turn, saves time and money for both the software manufacturer and the customer. The need for multiple physical copies of the same software and associated license keys is eliminated.
Third, this elimination of physical copies brings with it the most important reason for using volume licensing. Cost cutting associated with lack of physical products, individual software serial numbers, and manuals usually, but not always, allows a business to obtain each software license for less than what it would take to purchase separate software product keys . The lower prices offered through volume licensing also allow software vendors to better compete for the business. The price per software seat generally decreases as the number of licenses increases.
A volume license key typically works by setting a limit on the number of licenses that can be activated using that key. This can be done through the license pool, whereby a license file on the network controls license usage. Another possible volume licensing configuration is for the software to contact a remote license server, which may be on-premise or hosted by the software vendor. This server keeps track of the number of licenses associated with a particular key and can be set to reject requests for additional licenses once the number of licenses on the volume license key has been reached.
A disadvantage of volume licensing is when there is unauthorized use of the volume licensing key. This can result in many computers gaining illegal access to software licenses. If a volume license key is used outside of the organization for which it was originally designed, the licensee could be held liable for software piracy. For these reasons, an organization usually carefully secures and controls the use of its volume license keys.
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