ILNumerics® License Activation
The offical ILNumerics nuget packages allow the development and execution of all ILNumerics features for non-commercial use under the Starter Plan. Without a paid license your apps process data up to ~1 mio elements for a few minutes. To remove these runtime limitations and to allow commercial use of ILNumerics upgrade to a Professional or Enterprise Plan. Here, your developer seat requires activation. This page shows you how.
License Activation Overview
A developer seat can be activated on the command line, using the dotnet CLI or by using the ILNumerics Visual Studio Extension.
1) License Activation by dotnet CLI
The command line interface (CLI) of dotnet is installed with the dotnet SDK. It is the recommended way to activate your single developer seat license starting with ILNumerics version 7.2 and going forward. On non-Windows developer seats it is currently the only way to activate your seat.
For details on how to install the .NET SDK and / or the .NET CLI read here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tools
a) Install the ILNumerics license activation tool:
This installs the tool on the subdir 'ila'.
b) Run the license activation tool to activate your developer seat:
Replace the credentials (email address, license key) with your personal values (email + license key from your invoice / trial license email).
c) [Optional] remove the license activation tool:
This removes the tool from your subdirectory. If you want to re-activate your seat / refresh your license later, you can re-install the tool again.
2) License Activation in Visual Studio
Regardless, whether you started by downloading a trial or if you got passed a license key from your manager - if you are a lucky user of Visual Studio start by installing the ILNumerics Ultimate VS extension from the market place! The extension comes with many useful feature, including the Array Visualizer and is free of charge. Further, it makes it very easy to keep your ILNumerics licenses managed and to activate your seat. Note, that the extension itself does not require any license.
The second step is to activate your developer seat to start working with ILNumerics. Activation is only needed once for each development seat and after a new license has been purchased / a new module or asset has been added to your seat. The activation step is fully integrated into Visual Studio and is actually really simple:
Having installed the ILNumerics extension open Visual Studio and go to:
Visual Studio -> Tools -> Options -> ILNumerics -> Licenses
Provide your email address and the license key in the text boxes and click on 'Activate' or 'Refresh'. If you downloaded a trial of ILNumerics, use the same email address as for the download. The license key was sent to you within the email received from us after registering for the trial. Or you can find the license key in the invoice received after your purchase.
Note, that for each activation all licenses currently existing on your seat are replaced with a fresh new set of licenses according to all modules currently licensed to you. You can repeat the activation on the same seat as often as necessary. If you purchased a new module - just come back here and press [Activate] or [Refresh] again. Your email and license key will be there already.
After successfull activation the valid time spans can be reviewed for each licensed module. New licenses are valid immediately. No restart required.
Offline License Activation
The automatic activation process requires a working internet connection on the development machine where Visual Studio runs on. If for some reasons no internet connection is available you can activate the seat in a manual process. This options is available for corporate subscription users.
- Open Visual Studio -> Tools -> Options -> ILNumerics -> Licenses.
- Copy / note the 'Machine Key' displayed in the lower part of the options page. Consider using notepad.exe or similar to store the key in a text file on an USB removable drive or similar. (Using a pen with a paper is rather error prone, given that the characters in the key must not be confused and are case sensitive!) Also, note the version of ILNumerics currently installed. The version is displayed in Visual Studio -> Extensions -> Manage -> Installed and is required in the format: ?.?.0.0., i.e.: only the first two components (major, minor version) are provided. Other components are 0 (zero).
- Find a computer with a working internet connection. Open a browser and log into your account (see below) using your license key and your email address. (On new seats this will also associate your email with the seat.)
- Use the machine key and te version (see step 2) in order to activate your seat and download your licenses as a file. Store the file on an USB stick or similar and bring it back to the developer machine.
- Back in Visual Studio on the development machine click on 'Import' and point to the stored license file.
This will install the licenses on the development machine and your seat should be ready for development now. Once you expect new licenses to be available after a purchase/ renewal or update simply repeat this process or use the License Activation via Visual Studio directly.
Online License Management
The online license management allows one to manage a developer seat online. It lists all modules licensed for the seat, provides access to both, updates and archived versions of ILNumerics for download and allows for manual activation of such seats not directly connected to the internet.
In order to log into the online license management go to https://ilnumerics.net/account.html
Use your license key and your email address to log-in to your account. Follow the instructions on-site in order to take the required actions.
Select your seat from the 'Seats' list and review the enabled modules for the seat.
The 'Modules' table lists all modules currently enabled for your seat. Individual time spans and version spans are displayed for each module. If some range happens to be undefined, the corresponding limit is left open, which means 'unlimited'.
At the bottom of the [SEATS] page you find the section dealing with activations of the seat.
The 'Activation' section allows you to list existing activations for the selected seat. Here you can perform offline activation by clicking on 'New Activation'. Follow the instructions to provide the machine key acquired from your development machine (see above). Click on 'Activate' and download the resulting file. It contains al licenses for the seat identified by the machine key and can be imported to the development machine using the Visual Studio IDE.
The 'Downloads' section of your account lists download links to useful tools, including the ILLicProvider.exe tool. It allows to perform activation on such seats, where no Visual Studio is available.
Licensing for Your Projects
Once you have activated your seat you can start developing your projects. The build system will automatically track which projects need a license for deployment to non-licensed machines and automatically add the required deployment items to your projects. In most situations you will not have to deal with licensing explicitly. For more demanding situations read about the various uses and licensing scenarios and how to apply them to your setup on 'licensing scenarios'.
Further readings:
Getting Started: Your first Computing Module