Transferring licenses from one License Manager to another

ArcGIS License Manager allows users to transfer concurrent use licenses from one machine to another directly. The steps below outline the transfer process. This is useful in large organizations and among ELA customers who want to distribute licenses among different departments in their organizations by setting up multiple license managers.

Note:

If you wish to move licenses to a new host machine, for example when retiring a License Manager and standing up a new License Manager on a new host machine, do not use the transfer procedure highlighted in this topic. In this case you must deauthorize licenses back to Esri Customer Service from the machine being retired, and proceed to authorize licenses on the new host directly from Esri Customer Service. For information regarding installation and authorization or upgrading between License Managers, please see the License Manager installation and startup topic.

Furthermore, transfer of named user licenses from one ArcGIS License Manager to a different ArcGIS License Manager is not supported. If setting up a replacement or secondary License Manager with named user licenses, Esri customer service must be notified that the existing License Manager is being retired and that a new License Manager will be commissioned. This allows the named user entitlement counts to be updated correctly in My Esri and the new License Manager to be configured.

1. Install and authorize the License Manager software on machine A as specified in the License Manager installation and startup topic.
2. Install the License Manager software on machine B. At the end of the installation, the ArcGIS License Server Administrator appears.
3. Click Authorization in the table of contents and click the Authorize Now button to launch Software Authorization Wizard.
4. Keep the default option I need to authorize licenses on my license server, choose the product to authorize, then click Next.
5. On the next panel, choose the option Authorize your software from a local license server and click Next.
6. Specify the host name of the license manager you want to transfer licenses from. This is the license manager (machine A) you set up in step 1.
7. Enter the authorization number for the features and the number of licenses you want to transfer.
8. Complete the authorization process.
9. Start the license service on machine B (if required) by clicking Start/Stop License Service in the table of contents and clicking the Start button.

To deauthorize licenses from the License Manager on machine B, it is imperative to return any borrowed licenses before deauthorizing the License Manager on machine B, else these licenses will not be deauthorized and will remain on machine B. Furthermore, the License Manager on machine A must be installed and running in order to successfully receive the deauthorized licenses from machine B. If machine A is no longer available, licenses cannot be returned to Esri Customer Service from machine B. The chain of authorization between license managers must be followed in reverse for licenses to be returned to Esri Customer Service.

Note:

Authorization numbers can be located in the email sent by Esri Customer Service or within My Esri. They can also be part-located by double clicking the feature name in the Availability dialog of the License Server Administrator, which launches a popup where the last four digits of the authorization number is displayed. This can be used to cross reference authorization codes with My Esri, for use in cases where multiple authorizations are present for an individual feature.