We are looking at hosting our network license servers off-site. Another company will build a VM and take care of the OS and the phyical box, and we would remote in and take care of the license apps. We use the adskflex_license_file environmental variables on our client boxes to control the access to our license servers. As I understand it, new VM name at the site will be different than than the current license server. But, the DNS will redirect anything that goes from the old name to the new server. So, the name SERVER1 will redirect to OFFSITESERVER1, for example.
1) Will this work?
2) Will the name in the .lic file be OFFSITESERVER1 but the adskflex_license_file variable name remain SERVER1?
3) Would be be better off changing the client adskflex_license_file variable on everyone's computer to OFFSITESERVER1 with a group policy change?
Techically, hosting the NLM offsite and available over the Internet violates the EULA. If it is a private WAN or VPN, that is fine though.
1. Yes. The NLM will indeed work on a VM. You need to hard-code the virtual MAC address so that it does not randomly change.
2. If the DNS will redirect, it basically shouldn't matter. It's just like adding a HOSTS file entry that directs a hostname to a different valid IP address. So basically, if the client knows how to get to the server via DNS redirect, this should work.
3. Ultimately, this would be better, but since it is all based on DNS anyway, it is rather moot. If either hostname goes to the same place, it really doesn't matter.