Licensing Model

NCache offers various licensing plans based on the amount of RAM and logical cores you have. This page details the Dev Workstation, Dev/QA Server, Server-Only, and Client-Server options that NCache offers. It also details their license activation requirements, scaling behavior, and the need to reactivate licenses if hardware configurations change.

Dev Workstation

Dev Workstation refers to the NCache clients provided through NuGet, Maven, PyPi, and NPM. These clients include the complete NCache API and a stand-alone local InProc cache. Thus, the Dev Workstation requires no activation and works with a Local InProc Cache, making it incredibly fast.

Dev/QA Server

The Dev/QA Server refers to a stand-alone NCache cache server, that runs independently or as a local OutProc cache on a development workstation. This model supports up to 2 remote client nodes and an unlimited number of local clients. It is, therefore, ideal for development and testing environments and is available via both a traditional installation wizard and Docker. Although, it's limited to less than 25 requests per second.

Note

The Dev Workstation and Dev/QA Server licensing models, both offer a 2 GB cache (maximum).

Server-Only Licensing

This is NCache’s most common licensing model. In this model the number of licenses required is determined by the higher value between the server’s vCPUs or allocated RAM and the servers are licensed on a combination of both. You can connect unlimited clients to a licensed server. However, the server must be activated using a license key that corresponds to the specific plan you purchased. In this licensing model, cache servers issue licenses to clients when they connect to cache servers.

Client-Server Licensing

For such a licensing model, licenses are based on several vCPUs or the number of cores (for legacy customers). RAM is not a factor here. Additionally, you will have to purchase both the server and client licenses. The number of licenses are calculated based on 4 vCPUs or cores per license, with a minimum of 2 licenses per server and client. Every four additional vCPUs or cores requires one additional license.

For example, if you have eight vCPUs or a core on the client or server machine, you will need a minimum of 2 licenses. You will require another license as soon as you add four more vCPUs or cores, making your total number of vCPUs or cores to twelve.

Important

When you have client machines with NCache pre-installed, a client-server license key is required to activate both servers and clients individually, without necessitating reinstallation.

When you scale down the application tier, you will stop a few instances of containers or cloud virtual machines. And when they scale back up, new instances run on the new hardware.

Logical Processor or RAM Change for NCache License

You must reactivate your license if you resize your machine—such as increasing the number of logical processors or memory. Especially, if the new configuration exceeds your current license limits. Failing to do so is considered a license violation. In such cases, NCache will continue running for a 15-day grace period, after which all caches will stop unless the license is properly updated and revalidated.