Removing A User (Freeing Up A License/Entitlement)

Redgate licensing is user-based for client (desktop) tools, and server-based for server-hosted tools such as SQL Backup, SQL Monitor and SmartAssembly. In either case, you will lose entitlements or run out of entitlements if you needlessly leave "old" users allocated to a client tool license, or erroneously allocate users to a server-tool license. This article explains how to free up entitlements on a license for either a client or server-based tool, by removing allocated users on the Redgate Licensing portal.

Client (desktop) tools

You can activate a client-tool license on as many machines as you need, without running out of entitlements, as long as you log in with the same Redgate ID each time.

However, every time you activate a license with a different email address it will use up a license activation. For example, let's say your team have a 3-user license. One entitlement is assigned to your RedgateID, one is still assigned to a user who has now left the company, and one is assigned to "Device: xxx" because you recently did a manual license activation on a machine that did not have an Internet connection. You have now used up all the entitlements.

NOTE: User based licensing does not support tool versions prior to 2017 so if you're activating an old license the activation will also show in the customer portal as Device: xxx.

If another user on the team now tries to activate this license, or you try to activate it from an email address other than your RedgateID, it will cause the 'Failed to activate the license: All of the entitlements for serial xxx-xxx-xxxxxx-xxxx have already been claimed' problem, even though there is really only one current user of the tool (you).

If this happens you will need to:

  1. Go to portal.redgate.com and login with your RedgateID. See Creating And Managing Your Redgate ID.
  2. Remove the allocated user of the license (you will have to request the license owner to do this, if you are not the owner)

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Server tools

SQL Monitor, SQL Backup and SmartAssembly are licensed by server. On these tools, you should only see Device: xxx users on the Current allocated users section. Do not remove these users.

You should, however, always remove any allocated users with an email address. It is a mistake to assign a User to a server tool license. If you do so, it will consume an entitlement, which will not then be available in the tool, to use on a server. This leads to 'missing' entitlements or can also cause an "all entitlements claimed" error.

In the specific case of SQL Monitor, assigning a user to a legacy serial-activated license consumes all the entitlements and will immediately lead to the Failed to Activate License...All Entitlements Claimed" Error in SQL Monitor, when you attempt to use the serial key in SQL Monitor. Assigning a User to a RedgateID-activated license consume one entitlement per user, leading to 'missing' license entitlements that can't be used to license servers.

To avoid these problems when using server tool licenses, the owner should add a user's RedgateID to the license, only as either an Admin or Owner.

  1. Go to portal.red-gate.com and login with yourRedgateID. See Creating And Managing Your Redgate ID.
  2. Remove any allocated users of the license that have an email address (you will have to request the license owner to do this, if you are not the owner). Do not remove the Device: xxx user
  3. Ask the license owner to Add your RedgateID as an Owner or Admin

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