There are many different licencing models, but the two main licence models are Concurrent or Named (sometimes called per-seat) Licences.
All software is licenced in one form or another, both for commercially and free to use products.
Software development is a complex and expensive exercise. Free products are often produced and maintained by a large body of people, known as the “community”, and the resource will have no cost. In this situation, progress and support are much less predictable.
Commercially available products are usually developed and sold by specific companies and to maintain progress, and support and pay for their resources and shareholders those companies must derive an income – the licence fee.
A concurrent licence model, sometimes known as floating licences, is based on limiting the number of simultaneous users that can use the software at any one time. As a result any customer only needs to purchase the number of licences they predict the users will need to use the software at any one time.
There is good industry research available that suggests the average number of users per concurrent licence is 8, although we cannot stress enough that this is an average and in some environments, this ratio may be either 1:100 or even 1:1. (See how to calculate the number of concurrent users required later.)
With a concurrent licence model, it doesn’t matter how many people are in the end-user community, there could be thousands, everyone can be given access rights, but only the number of concurrent licences purchased can be in the system at any one time.
Therefore, the licences are shared across the user community and access to the software is not guaranteed, especially at peak times. Generally, concurrent licences are more expensive than the equivalent per seat licence but usually offer better value for money as you would require fewer licences in total.
Named Users or Per Seat licences will typically provide a number of licences directly attributable to individual end-users. In this situation, one licence is purchased for every user that may ever need to use the software whether they are using it all day long, or just occasionally.
The Named User model is sometimes referred to as per seat as this equates to the number of “bums on seats”. This model guarantees the user access whenever they want, but is typically more expensive overall, as more licences are required. There is also usually an administrative or maintenance overhead involved, with all users needing to be defined, maintained and removed as necessary.
Understanding how many licences are required is very easy as this is one per person that requires the use of the software.
How to calculate the number of concurrent users required. When considering the number of concurrent user licences required, there are two factors to consider:–
1. The baseload which is typically how many users in total will be on the system in a time period (for example per day or per hour) divided by their average stay on the system (duration typically in minutes). So if we typically expect 50 users per hour to use a system for circa 20 minutes each, we would calculate 50 / (60 / 20) requiring 17 concurrent users.
2. If you are planning for peak usage simply replace the 50 in the above example with the predicted maximum number of users at a peak time. Remember when planning for peak usage this will not simply be considering what licences are required – you could have unlimited – but you will also need to plan the server, network and other resources to be able to cope with peak usage.
In extreme cases, customers can benefit significantly from using concurrent licences. Excelpoint has global customers, and with a workforce around the world, users in different time zones benefit from using the same licences as others who are sleeping while they work. This is sometimes known as “follow the Sun”.
For more information or to organise a demo of Excelpoint’s no-code software platform, please contact @hello@excelpoint.co.uk or call 01325 375930.
