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What is Entra ID licensing?

Thomas Schempp
  • Updated

Entra ID licensing allows axes4 products to be licensed without any communication to axes4 servers. axes4 does not have any access to the Azure environment or the Entra ID directory of its customers.

The clients on which an axes4 product runs must be members of an Azure Entra ID domain. A Windows Active Directory infrastructure (in-house) is not compatible; we provide separate Active Directory licensing for this.

Operating principle

The program folder of the axes4 license manager contains a Json file which contains the following information, among other things:

  • Azure Tenant ID
  • Object ID of an Entra ID group, which contains the licensed users
  • Number of licensed users
  • Expiration date of the license

The file has the naming scheme LicenseToken_...json.

The registry of a client computer also contains the following information:

axes4 products periodically check the following points:

  1. Can the current user log in to the Entra ID of the specified tenant?
  2. Is the current user a member of the specified Entra ID group?
  3. Does the number of users in the Entra ID group match the number of users in the license?
  4. Is the current date within the validity period of the license?

If all four conditions are met, the axes4 products are activated – otherwise they run in demo mode.

How to proceed using axesWord as an example

  • The organization purchases a license for Entra ID licensing from axes4.
  • The admin creates an App Registration on Azure
  • The admin creates a new Entra ID group (example: “axesWord Users”) and adds the Entra ID users who use axesWord to this group.
  • The admin informs axes4 of the Azure Tenant ID and the Object ID of the Entra ID group. He receives a license token file and distributes it to the clients that use axesWord using a deployment tool (such as InTune).
  • The admin adjusts the registry value for the license manager and the Azure App Registration on the clients.

Important notes

  • The Object ID of the Entra ID group cannot be changed after the license has been issued. You can change the name of the group, but you cannot request an updated license for a different group.
  • The number of licenses cannot be reduced after the license has been issued. (However, it is possible to increase the number of licenses.)
  • The Azure Tenant ID cannot be changed after the license has been issued (which is not a problem in practice).