We have been asked by a client if it is possible to license WinCC OA not using a physical license dongle or external license services (I.E. a software license on the local machine). Reading through the documentation that should be possible but I would like to know if there are any issues to consider when the WinCC OA system is running in a virtual environment (offline, no internet). Things like:
Virtual machine backup and restore. Will restoring a backup of the virtual machine affect the license?
Since such a software license is probably "hardware bound" to what degree could changing the virtual hardware of the virtual machine affect the license?
Will moving the virtual machine from one physical host to another physical host affect the license?
Anything else?
Perhaps this is documented somewhere but I was unable to find it.
You must always activate the licence locally, as a dongle or via a Codemeter licence server.
The licence is hardware-bound for all types.
Personally, I would never use a local licence for virtual machines. As soon as the machine is moved to another host, the licence becomes invalid.
If you are working offline, the best choice is a dongle with a dongle server.
