Very happy to hear this news, will simplify things on my end for sure. Will definitely be revisiting some of the recent VSL offerings again in the coming months.
Seems there may be some confusion on how the various iLok options work. You basically have 3 options, and it is up to each company/developer to choose which options they want to support:
(1)
Dongle -> Self-explanatory
(2)
Machine -> You transfer the licence onto your machine, probably tied to the harddrive in some way. So if the HD or computer dies, as far as I know, you have to go to each individual developer and ask for new licenses. Sounds like a massive PITA so I never use this option. Good to hear that others have had painless experiences with developers getting this sorted. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable taking that risk though. It is up to each developer whether or not to issue replacement licenses on a case-by-case basis, but it will be huge pain regardless if you have a ton of licenses spanning many developers.
(3)
Cloud -> License remains on iLok's servers and isn't transferred locally anywhere. According to iLok's website (
https://www.paceap.com/pace-ilok-cloud.html), this does in fact require continuous internet connection. Their website clearly sates "If the internet connection is lost an error message will appear after a few minutes..." So it seems like the cloud option might actually check pretty frequently. I've personally never used this option either so can't really comment on it further.
The last thing worth mentioning, is the
ZDT (zero down-time) + TLC (theft/loss coverage) protection which costs $30 per year per dongle and covers all licenses on that dongle. Last I checked, this protection ONLY applies to option #1 (the dongle). Unless something has changed since I last asked about it a couple of years ago, it does NOT cover machine licenses (and is unnecessary for cloud licenses).
If you enable
TLC, it basically puts 'temporary' 3-month licenses on your iLok dongle and requires you to sync to their servers any time before the 'deadline' to refresh them for another 3mo. This allows iLok to immediately issue you new licenses without contacting any developers if you lose or have your iLok stolen since those old licenses are guaranteed to expire. I beleive it is also one-time use. I.e. you'd have to buy the $30 protection again on the replacement dongle.
Apologies if people already knew all of that. I found it not clearly explained when I was new to iLok so figured I'd share in case others were confused.
