Renewing a license
When your license is about to expire, you can renew it by adding a reserve key. This lets you avoid any limitations on solution functionality after the current license expires and before you activate the solution under a new license.
The type of reserve key must match the type of the previously added active key.
If you are using a licensing scheme based on the number of protected virtual machines that distinguishes server keys and desktop keys, the type of the reserve key must match the type of the guest operating system of the virtual machines. If the SVM is protecting virtual machines with server operating systems and desktop operating systems, you need to add two reserve keys to SVMs: a server key and a desktop key.
If you are using a licensing scheme based on the number of protected virtual machines regardless of the operating system type, a licensing scheme based on the number of CPUs, or a licensing scheme based on the number of CPU cores, you need one reserve key (with the corresponding licensing limitation) regardless of the operating system of the protected virtual machines.
To add a reserve key to the SVM, use the Solution activation task for the Protection Server.
You can create a Solution activation task to add a reserve key in the Administration Console or in the Web Console. At the Add a license key step of the New Task Wizard, select the Use the license key as a reserve key check box.
The task adds the reserve key on those SVMs on which the active key has already been added. The reserve key is automatically used as the active key after the Kaspersky Security license expires.
If you use an activation code to activate the solution, then when the license expires the solution automatically connects to Kaspersky activation servers in order to replace the active key that has expired. If the solution is unable to automatically connect to Kaspersky activation servers, you will have to manually start the Solution activation task in order to renew the license to use Kaspersky Security.
When one of the following conditions is met, the Solution activation task finishes with an error and the reserve key is not added:
- There is no active key on the SVM.
- The type of the reserve key being added does not match the type of the previously added active key.
If an SVM has an active key and a reserve key and you choose to replace the active key, Kaspersky Security checks the expiration date of the reserve key. If the reserve key expires before the previously renewed license term, Kaspersky Security automatically removes the reserve key. In this case, you can add a different reserve key after adding the active key.