Differences in requests to FNO and license server

[TrinityTonic]

At the moment we use offline licensing via offline upload of capability responses that we download from FNO and manually upload to a device.

However in the near future we want our devices to retrieve their licenses, i.e. their capability responses automatically from the FNO backend which currently runs on-premise and is hosted by us. Ideally if the same endoints were used for FNO / license server - in our understanding - a switch from node-locked licenses to floating licenses served by a license server would just be a switch of the URL endpoint that we are using. Is that correct?

Are there any differences (e.g. for the routes, endpoints, authentication mechanism, etc.) in requesting a capability response form FNO vs. requesting a capability response from a local license server? There is documentation about the REST endpoints of a local license server (offline) / cloud license server (online), however we're not sure whether the same endpoints could be used to directly communicate from device to FNO. What documentation could we use to find out and evaluate the REST endpoints available for our FNO?

How does a device authenticate itself to FNO in order for it to automatically retrieve the capability response that is mapped to the corresponding device?

[jberthold]

Hi @TrinityTonic ,

There is a fundamental difference between obtaining licenses from FlexNet Operations (FNO) and a FlexNet Embedded License Server (local or Cloud).  

• Capability requests to FNO contain an Activation ID.  FNO looks looks up the Entitlement Line for the provided Activation ID in and if the requested quantity can be fulfilled FNO will return the license Features associated with the entitled Product in the capability response.
• The general endpoint for direct Activation to FNO is:  https://<siteID>.compliance.flexnetoperations.com/deviceservices where <siteID> is your Production or UAT instance.
• Capability requests to a License Server contain license Features.   A license server is essentially a pool of features which serves those licenses to client devices.   
• The Server URL will vary depending on whether you are using a Cloud or Local License Server.  A Cloud Server endpoint will have the form: https://<siteID>.compliance.flexnetoperations.com/instances/<CLS instance ID>/request  whereas a local license server will have an endpoint such as http://LicenseServerHostName:port/fne/bin/capability
• Capability requests to either FNO / License server are similar aside from providing Activation IDs vs Features.  There is nothing different you have to do from an authentication point of view as they are both handled via the FNO Identities in your FlexNet Embedded enabled application.  
• The Cloud Monetization API (CMAPI) is a REST API for requesting license features only from a Cloud or Local License Server.  It has its own authentication mechanism via the use of JSON Web Tokens (JWTs).  A video on JWTs is available in the learning center here: https://learning.revenera.com/generating-and-using-json-web-tokens-for-rest-apis/1231876 .  
• Documentation on the Cloud Monetization REST APIs is available in the Product and License Center under FlexNet Embedded / FlexNet Embedded Documentation, refer to the FlexNet Embedded Cloud Monetization API User Guide.

Thanks,

Jim

[TrinityTonic]

Thanks! Let's say we created a device in FNO and mapped some entitlements to it. Normally - in our offline use-case - we would go to FNO, download the capability response that we assigned to the device and then upload it to the device.

Now we want the device to retrieve the capability response - that we mapped to the device - by itself. Is it really necessary to send a capability request to FNO (containing the activation ID) or could we retrieve the capability response by querying some URL to download the data?

Actually we want the user to configure a URL on the device. The device would check that URL regularly to see if there are any new licenses assigned to it that it can retrieve and use.

[jberthold · Accepted solution]

Hi @TrinityTonic ,

Yes, you will still need to send a capability request to FNO.  Since  you have already mapped entitlements to the device in FNO this capability request will be a sync or empty capability request with no Activation ID specified.  FNO will return a capability response with the mapped entitlements.  Your devices can send this sync to FNO at the desired frequency to obtain any license updates.

Best regards,

Jim

[TrinityTonic]

Is there an endpoint documentation for FNO as well (just like the CMAPI endpoint documentation)? Where can I obtain the information about what endpoints I could use for device to FNO communication?

[jberthold]

Yes it's in the FlexNet Operations User Guide https://docs.revenera.com/

and in the FNO online help.  Production Endpoint URLs for FNO are shown below: