Licenses
Activate your Xperience by Kentico application by following the steps described below for each subscription type:
- Xperience by Kentico subscription providing an Xperience Portal project for deploying to the SaaS environment.
- License-only subscription – for private cloud deployments.
- Evaluation license – a 30-day evaluation license.
Subscription expiration and renewal
Contact Kentico sales to renew your subscription.
Subscriptions expire at midnight (0 hours) at the start of the expiration date. For example, if a subscription expires on December 31, the last day it remains valid is December 30.
Private cloud deployments and Xperience Portal projects (SaaS deployment) expiration dates include a 30-day grace period. The grace period does not apply to evaluation licenses.
Evaluate Xperience by Kentico
Create an account in Kentico Client Portal to receive a 30-day evaluation license key. For more information, see License keys.
Licensing Xperience by Kentico
When you purchase an Xperience by Kentico SaaS subscription, you receive access to an Xperience Portal project. The purchased service plan defines the set of available features in the Xperience Portal. You can see your current service plan on the Dashboard in the Xperience Portal.
Service plan change
Over time, your requirements for the service plan you use may change. When they do, contact Kentico sales and renegotiate with them your subscription plan and agree on a time for a scheduled Xperience Portal project maintenance. Your new service plan will be active once the scheduled maintenance finishes.
To help you decide which service plan best fits your needs, see SaaS service plans.
Licensing for applications in the SaaS deployment environments (QA, UAT, Production) is automatically handled by the Xperience Portal, except for local development environments.
License keys for SaaS local development
Activate your local development instance by generating a license key in Xperience Portal:
Open the License key generator application in Xperience Portal.
Select your Xperience by Kentico version.
Select Generate license key.
Store the license key in a text file before you leave the license key generator.
Lost license keys cannot be recovered. If you lose the license key, you will need to generate a new one.Register the license key in the Xperience administration to activate your local Xperience instance. See Register license keys in Xperience.
The local development instance is activated. The license key expires with your subscription, but its expiration date is automatically extended with every subscription renewal when your local Xperience instance is connected to the Internet.
Licensing private cloud deployments
Activate Xperience by registering your license keys in the Xperience administration. For more information, see Register license keys in Xperience.
Obtain license keys by registering the serial number you received with your Xperience by Kentico purchase in the Kentico Client Portal.
Contact Kentico support if you cannot sign in to the Kentico Client Portal.
License keys
Each Xperience by Kentico instance must be activated using a license key tied to a license in the Kentico Client Portal. You can generate the following types of license keys:
- Evaluation – provides full access to all features of the product for 30 days.
- Production – for live deployments. See Production license keys.
- Non-production – for local development and pre-production environments (deployment pipelines, QA). See Non-production license keys.
License keys must be registered via the Xperience administration or during project database installation.
All license keys support unlimited auto-scaling, allowing sites to accommodate increased traffic and performance demands.
License server communication
To ensure fair product use, Xperience instances communicate with the Kentico license server on a daily basis. As a result, a working Internet connection is mandatory for all instances. License server communication uses the following endpoint: https://api.kentico.com/licensing/licenses/instanceverification. Ensure this URL is whitelisted and accessible from your network.
When an Xperience instance cannot reach the Kentico license server for longer than five days, the administration interface starts notifying users via information popups and the event log. If you keep encountering issues after verifying that your instance is connected to the internet and the communication endpoint is accessible, contact our support department at support@kentico.com.
Register license keys in Xperience
Product license keys are managed via the Settings application under System -> Licenses.
To register a license key:
- Open the Settings application.
- Navigate to System -> Licenses.
- Insert your license key into the License key setting.
- (Optional) Set a friendly name for your instance. This value will be used in the license overview section of the Kentico Client Portal. You can use friendly names to identify instances under a single license.
- Save the changes.
The product is now activated using the provided key.
Production license keys
Production license keys are intended for final, live product deployments.
Xperience by Kentico instances activated using production license keys perform daily checks that monitor product feature use (the number of active website channels, for example).
If the instance detects feature use that is outside the scope of the corresponding license, the administration interface displays a warning banner detailing the violation. Product use is not limited in these cases. However, note that such actions are monitored and you may be contacted by a Kentico representative should they persist for a prolonged period of time.
After addressing any reported issues, you need to wait for the next daily check before the warning banner disappears from the administration interface.
Non-production license keys
Non-production licenses are intended for local development and pre-production environments (deployment pipelines, QA).
Xperience by Kentico instances activated using non-production license keys do not monitor product feature use. Avoiding license overreach when using non-production license keys is the user’s responsibility.
License violation reporting
When the system detects a license violation, such as instances exceeding the number of allowed channels, it notifies users via the event log and a warning banner displayed atop the administration interface. The banner and event log entries provide details related to the violation and steps necessary to correct it.
License violation notifications are displayed across all instance registered under the same license.
For example, assume an environment with three instances (A, B, and C) registered using three separate production license keys generated from a single license. If instance A violates the license, instances B and C start displaying license violation notifications as well. However, instances B and C only know that a license violation occurred, they aren’t provided any specific details. They will only highlight the type of violation, not the instance responsible (A in this example). After correcting the violation, all instances return to normal.