Seat Heartbeat Signal
Overview
An instance with an active floating license seat sends periodic heartbeat signals to the licensing server. This is what allows the licensing server to keep the seat marked as active. Several attempts are made at each interval.
What Happens if the Heartbeat Stops
If an instance’s heartbeat signal is not received at the licensing server within a predetermined amount of time, the licensing server assumes that the instance has failed or lost communication, and automatically frees the seat for use by other instances. If the instance is still running when this occurs, licensed features become unavailable.
This is the mechanism that reclaims seats after a power loss, hardware failure, or force kill, where the instance had no opportunity to deactivate its own seat (see Automatic Seat Deactivation).
Tolerance for Network Issues
The process is tolerant of intermittent network issues. For example, a typical configuration requires a heartbeat signal every 24 hours, while the product attempts to send a heartbeat on a much shorter interval and makes several attempts at each interval.