In addition to the developer license that you will need in order to write an application against the Map Suite .NET controls, some Map Suite products also require production server licenses. These licenses are necessary when you have a web-based application or other service that lives on a web- or cloud-based server. In order to deploy your application or service to such an environment in a production capacity, you will need a server license for each server that will host the application. Failure to install a production server license will result in a blank map being drawn by your application, with a message stating “Unlicensed for Runtime”.

The following Map Suite products require production server licenses: Map Suite Web Edition, Map Suite MVC Edition, Map Suite Silverlight Edition and Map Suite WMS Server Edition. A production server license may also be required if you are running an application built with the following products in a web or cloud-based environment: Map Suite Services Edition, Map Suite Routing and Map Suite Geocoder.

If in doubt, contact your ThinkGeo sales representative for full details. Production server licenses can be purchased online from the ThinkGeo Store, and are offered on a per-server or unlimited-servers basis.

Beginning with Map Suite 8.0, production server licenses are downloaded through the ThinkGeo Product Center application. The download package consists of a tool that can simply be installed on your server to activate the license.

Once you have purchased the appropriate server license from ThinkGeo, simply log into the Product Center using the associated ThinkGeo account. Click on the product for which you purchased the server license – for example, Map Suite MVC Edition – and you will see a section labeled Server License Tool on the right side of the window. This section contains your production server license serial number, as well as a link to download the license installation tool.

Simply click “Download” to retrieve your server license installation tool from ThinkGeo. You will be prompted for a location in which to save the file, which will be a Microsoft Installer package (.msi). We recommend that you keep your license installation tool and serial number backed up in a safe place.

The server license you download and install must be of equal or lesser version to the Map Suite developer control you used in your application. For example, if you have built your application using Map Suite Web Edition 8.0, you must use the Web Edition server license tool version 8.0 or older. You cannot use Web Edition server license tool version 9.0 or higher, because your application will not recognize the newer license format. This is why we recommend that you store your server license tool in a safe place after you have downloaded it.

If you need a legacy version of a server license tool, please contact ThinkGeo.

Once you have downloaded your production server license tool, copy it up to the web or cloud-based server on which you will be hosting your application. Double-click on the server license .msi file. You should be presented with a window like the one below:

Click the “Next” button to proceed.

You will then be asked to accept the ThinkGeo software license agreement. Once you have read the license in its entirety, check the box at the bottom of the window and click “Next”.

On the next step, enter your customer information. This includes your name, your company, and the serial number for your production server license (which you obtained from the ThinkGeo Product Center application).

After filling in your customer information, click “Next” to proceed.

Now, you will choose your installation type. Make a choice as follows:

• If you are installing a license on a production server for a live application, select the Production Server option. This will consume one production server license from your ThinkGeo account, but will enable your application to display maps without watermarks.
• If you are installing a license on a test server that will be used only for internal testing, select the Development/Test Server option. This will not consume a license from your ThinkGeo account, but any map displayed by your application will be rendered with a watermark to show that it is being run on a test server.

Once you have made a selection, click the “Next” button.

On this step, choose the installation directory for your server license information. The default is typically fine. Then, click “Next”.

Your production server license is ready to be installed. To proceed, click the “Install” button. At this point, you may be asked to enter credentials for an administrator account on Windows Vista / Server 2008 or higher. Make sure you say “Yes” to the User Account Control prompts, or your production server license will be unable to install.

The installation will proceed, and a blue bar will indicate its progress until it is complete.

When the installation finishes successfully, you will be shown the following screen:

Click the “Finish” button to exit the installer.

Your production server license is now installed! To test it, launch or access your Map Suite application at runtime and ensure that your maps are displaying correctly and without any watermarks.

If your server environment does not have an active Internet connection, or you are otherwise unable to reach the thinkgeo.com domain due to proxy, firewall or other issues, you must install your production server license using the offline Map Suite Registration Builder tool.

To remove a production server license, simply open the Windows Control Panel, select “Uninstall a program”, and then locate the server license in the list of installed software. Its name will begin with “Map Suite” and it will indicate the product edition that the license is associated with; for example, “Map Suite Web Edition Server License Tool”.

If there is more than one version of the Map Suite server license on the machine, please ensure that you are removing the correct version. Then, simply double-click the item to uninstall it.

If you installed the server license as a “Production Server” type, uninstalling will free up one server license activation in your ThinkGeo account. This means you can reinstall the server license later at any time, or on a different server. Please note that your server will need to have an active Internet connection in order for your license to be freed.