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The ECF provides a flexible licensing model that can be used in a number of different situations and scenarios depending on the nature of your development team, processes for implementing your solutions, and the target production environment you are deploying to.
Types and Definitions of Licenses
There are three types of licenses: Developer License, QA/Staging Non-Production License, and Production Deployment License.
Developer License
i. Description - When you receive either the SDK or Full Source Package, the ECF comes in an unlicensed state, which allows you to develop in a "localhost" environment. If you would like to develop the ECF in an environment other than "localhost," then you can request a Developer license. The Developer license has no expiration date. It can be used by any number of developers within your organization. Developer licenses will operate on PCs with one or more physical processors. If you need to develop on Windows 2003 Server or Windows 2008 Server, contact sales to discuss and let us know how many processors are running on those servers.
ii. Paid/Free - This is included with your purchase of the Full Source Code.
iii. Why you need this license - You only need this if you desire to develop in an environment other than "localhost."
QA/Staging Non-Production License
For our paid customers and partners, we provide this license at no extra cost.
i. Description - Enables you to create or leverage your process for development, quality assurance, and staging before your solution is moved into production. These licenses typically expire a year after the date of generation. The expiration date can be extended if necessary.
ii. Paid/Free - This is included with your purchase of the Full Source Code.
iii. Why you need this license - These licenses are provided to you for non-public domains and IP addresses for the purposes of shared development testing, QA, staging, integration testing servers, user acceptance testing or virtually any other scenario you need to support the delivery of your solution.
Production Deployment License
Production deployment licenses need to be purchased from Mediachase to deploy a live, public website.
i. Description - Production licenses are priced and configured based on the number of physical processor(s) in your Production server environment. For example, if you have four servers and each server has two processors, the licensing cost would be based on eight processors. There are two sub-types of Production Deployment Licenses:
a. Unlimited Sites Deployment License - This entitles you to an unlimited number of public sites. The cost of this license is based on the number of physical processor(s) on each production server.
b. Two-Site Deployment License - This enables you to launch up to two live production sites. The cost of this license is based on the number of physical processor(s) on each production server.
ii. Paid/Free - Paid
iii. Why you need this license - You need this license in order to deploy and launch a live, publicly available website.
iv. Scenarios - These are different licensing scenarios that will help you determine what is considered a site and thus the type of Production Deployment License you will need to purchase:
a. www.mystore.com and www.mystore.com/uk – This is one site
b. www.mystore.com/clothing and www.mystore.com/toys - This is one site
c. www.mystore.com and www.mystore.co.uk – This is two sites (unless it is just a redirect and it truly one site that is supporting multi-language/currency)
d. www.us.mystore.com and www.uk.mystore.com – This is two sites (unless it is just a redirect and it truly one site that is supporting multi-language/currency)
e. www.mystore.com and www.myb2bstore.com – This is two sites
There are special licenses that can be generated based on a particular customer request. These licenses can be requested by first contacting us and specifying your requirements.
LIC Files and Special/Non-Standard Licenses
Sometimes a customer's requirements go beyond our typical licensing blueprint. In these situations, we can generate non-standard licenses.
In most cases, customers will only need the product key to activate ECF, which requires a remote connection to our licensing server. However, some customers are behind restrictive firewalls that cannot be altered because of company or organizational policies, effectively blocking remote connections to our licensing server. In such cases, we will issue .LIC files to those customers so they can activate ECF locally without having to use a key. .LIC files are sent via email to the customer that they can upload and ?install. If your installation requires a .LIC file, we will need the Host ID of the installation on the License.
Some customers may have atypical licensing requirements because of unique configurations, such as split ECF Systems across multiple servers, web service abstractions, web farms/network clusters using the Windows NT Load Balancing Service (WLBS), etc. They are much more complex and convoluted, so they are conducted on a case by case basis. Before purchasing ECF licenses, consult with our sales team your requirements to ensure that you receive the correct licenses that properly work in these types of server environments.
General Process for Obtaining Licenses
Customers must know in advance what their developer, QA, staging, production domains and requirements are. They have to be specific and precise about their licensing requests. For example, a typical email request will have this information, which includes domain/IP and CPU requirements:
| Purchase/No. of Processors | Site URL/Domain | No. of Servers/OS |
| Dev/Test – 2 CPUs | dev.mysite.com | 1/Windows Server 2008 |
| QA – 1 CPU | quality.public.mysite.com quality.admin.mysite.com |
1/Windows 7 Enterprise |
| Staging – 2 CPUs | staging.public.mysite.com staging.admin.mysite.com |
1/Windows Server 2008 |
| Production – 2 CPUs | mysite.com admin.mysite.com (or unlimited) |
2/Windows Server 2008 |
When you purchase or request ECF licenses, you will receive back a product key that you can use for the purposes of your request or purchase. The ECF has built-in licensing tools that will allow you to activate or review your licensing information in a matter of seconds.
Important note for Windows 2003 Servers
If you want to deploy ECF on Windows Server 2003, you must download and apply the Microsoft CPU hotfix. Without it, a single dual-core CPU will be seen by Windows as two physical CPUs, thus throwing off their licensing request for a single CPU. It is crucial that they install that hotfix before installing ECF. For more information about this hotfix, go here.