Renewing a license
July 22, 2024
ID 67439
When your license is about to expire, you can renew it by adding a reserve key. This prevents the impairment of application functionality after the current license expires and before you activate the application under a new license.
The type of reserve key must match the type of the previously added active key.
If you use a licensing scheme that is based on the number of protected virtual machines, the type of the reserve key must match the type of the guest operating system of the virtual machines: the reserve server key is intended for the virtual machines with server operating systems; the reserve desktop key is intended for virtual machines with desktop operating systems.
If an SVM is used in a virtual infrastructure to protect virtual machines with both server and desktop operating systems, it is recommended to add a corresponding reserve key for each type of operating system.
If you use a licensing scheme based on the number of processors or processor cores, you need one reserve key with a limitation on the number of processors or processor cores, regardless of the operating system type installed on the virtual machines.
The reserve key must match the same type of the license as the active key (standard license/enterprise license).
The application activation task is used to add a reserve key on an SVM.
You can create an application 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 for application activations, at the expiry of the license the application automatically connects to Kaspersky activation servers in order to replace the active key that has expired. If the automatic connection of the application to Kaspersky activation servers ends with an error, you have to manually start the application activation task in order to renew the license to use Kaspersky Security.
The application activation task finishes with an error and the reserve key is not added when one of the following conditions is met:
- 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.