About licensing of Umetrics Suite products

This article is an overview to how licensing works in the recent and supported versions of the main Umetrics® Suite products listed above. Individual releases may work differently in some aspects. For details about a specific version, always refer to its release knowledge base article.

This article does not focus on about maintenance agreements you make with Sartorius when you purchase software, support, product lifecycle, or questions about entitlement to updates.

About licenses

A license is needed for a product to make it fully functional. Without a license most software works in demo or trial mode for evaluation. Learn more below.

A license typically controls

start date, the software won't work until this date
expiry date, after which the software stops functioning. In addition, there can be a grace period after expiry when the software continues to work while the agreement is renewed.
available features

How software can be licensed on PCs

Software can be licensed in three ways:

Using an Activation ID to activate a PC, with or without internet access on the PC.
Using an on-premises license server that provides licenses to SIMCA and MODDE inside an organization.
Using a license file to activate a PC. The use of a manually created license file is used as a fallback in an event where Activation IDs or a license server do not work.

Activation IDs or license files are delivered by email following an order.

Demo and trial licenses

Most Umetrics Suite software can be installed on a PC for evaluation without a license.

A trial version of MODDE and SIMCA can only be activated once on a PC. A trial version will not work on a Virtual Machine, including on MacOS.

The 2021 FlexNet operations (FNO) licensing system and the one preceding it

This article is mainly about the new licensing system introduced in 2021. It is based on FlexNet Operations (FNO) is used by all new releases, and integrates with the my.sartorius.com portal. The system uses 32 character Activation IDs. Software using this system are versions starting with MODDE 13.0.1, SIMCA 17.0.1, SIMCA-online 17, SIMCA-Q 17.0.1.

Earlier versions than the above use 20 character activation keys, and a licensing portal at https://license.x-formation.com/. This portal can be used to activate an old version of the software manually if internet access isn't available on the PC, or networking firewalls or proxies interfere with the connection.

Activation IDs

Using an Activation ID to activate a PC is the quickest way to license a product: You provide your Activation ID in the Umetrics Suite product and it connects to the Sartorius cloud-based licensing system and activates the license.

Activation can be done over the internet, or with a built-in offline procedure which is documented in the product.
The number of activations allowed is determined by the sales agreement.
A license can be de-activated (returned) by the user in the Umetrics Software in the Manage license wizard. To deactivate a device that is no longer available, contact support.

Technical details and notes:

An Activation ID is a 32 character hexadecimal string of the form HHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHH-HHHH.
MODDE and SIMCA contacts the cloud licensing system when started and updates the license if it has been changed (for example following an updated subscription license). SIMCA-online does not update the license in this way.
For activation to work over the internet, networking firewalls on PCs need to be configured to allow access to https://flex13018.flexnetoperations.eu/flexnet/deviceservices (enable outgoing tcp port 443 traffic).
MODDE and SIMCA can be activated on the command line when installed, learn more in Custom and silent installation MODDE, SIMCA and SIMCA-online (sartorius.com)
Each Umetrics Suite software supports only ONE Activation ID at the time. Thus, if you have a multi-year agreement and got yearly Activation IDs, each has to be activated when it becomes valid as defined by its start date.

my.sartorius.com

https://my.sartorius.com is the portal where you register and download your purchased software. You get access to software through the Activation IDs that are emailed following a purchase. The portal is also used for offline activation, when internet is not available on your PCs (the Umetrics Suite software guides you in this process on screen).

About using an on-premises license server

An on-premises Umetrics® Suite License Server is used to provide licenses to SIMCA® and MODDE® inside an organization, thereby allowing centrally managed licenses. License usage is tracked by the license server. Individual PCs need no manual activation. The administrator of a license server is obliged to report the yearly usage to Sartorius.

Note: SIMCA-online, SIMCA-Q and MODDE-Q do not support license servers.

Umetrics License Servers and supported Umetrics Suite Products (sartorius.com)

Learn more

Details on each product version, including exactly how licensing works for it, is described in its own knowledge base article.

Get support for licensing and other issues at https://www.sartorius.com/umetrics-support