TestStand Licenses

[paulmw]

I have been fortunate within the last many years to work for companies that have software enterprise agreements with NI and I haven't had to purchase an individual license in quite some time.  However, I find myself needing to give some guidance to someone else in need of purchasing there own license.  To that, it seems some things have changed in the licensing schema of TestStand.

First off, when did the Debug licenses become more expensive than the Development license?  Also, why would it be more expensive?  Can't the development license do everything.

Also, I am not sure if the Debug license will license the sequence editor?  The compare license web page seems to suggest it does not.

Can someone please give me/us some guidance?  My college is getting recommended to purchase the Debug license from NI sales, which I would have agreed back when my understanding that the debug license cost less.  Now it cost more I don't see a point in ever getting a debug license.

[Carlos_Gonzalez]

Hi Paulmw,

At the beginning of the year, we changed our development licenses to a subscription model but kept the deployment licenses (base and debug) in a perpetual model. Deployment licenses are perpetual because we don’t want a production system to suddenly stop working because of licensing issues.

The debug deployment license appears more expensive because is perpetual, while the TestStand Development System, appears to be cheaper because it is now under a yearly subscription model.

The debug one will license the sequence editor to allow for debugging and making minor changes to components to fix an issue in an application in production. Making changes to steps and sequences that add or improve functionality is considered development and requires a development license.

I hope I answered all your concerns. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Carlos Gonzalez

TestStand Product Manager

[paulmw]

Hi Carlos,

In the "Subscription model" what happens after the subscription period expires?

Thanks,

Paul

[paulmw]

If I buy a subscription license and then decide not to renew, what happens to my software?

With subscription software, you will need to renew at the end of each term to maintain access to your software and associated services.  

I found this in the FAQ...

This is BS.  Such greed.  You don't sell software now you rent it.  

[bienieck]

It is BS but that's how it works nowadays...

However, it is not that bad. In general only development is subscription-based.

You still have perpetual debug/deploy which IMHO is the best option for prototype-ish systems and perpetual base deployment (which you can always update to the latest TS for free, if I'm not mistaken).

You can use SeqEdit in dev and debug/deploy, but in any cases if you want to add features in your solution you need to buy subscription for dev.

IMHO it is only lame that there is no discount for 2 and 3 years subscription.

[bienieck]

---

@paulmw wrote:

Can someone please give me/us some guidance? 

---

Here I made a Mermaid flowchart that you might find helpful. You can edit it in this online editor if you like.