Licensing

Before purchasing a license, please make sure you understand which Image Uploader license you need to buy. This page explains different licensing plans for companies running websites. For better understanding why it works this way, it is highly recommended to read the blog post about licensing policy. Feel free to leave a feedback on this.

Single-Owner Website License Plans Overview

In short, there are three licensing plans available.

Express Licensing Plan

An ideal licensing plan for small companies that need to use powerful features of Image Uploader on their website, but are not ready for significant IT investments. Allows for running Image Uploader with one hostname on a single server with up to 2 CPUs. Technical support is provided through managed forums. Also, up to 2 cases may be submitted in our help desk system. 

Standard Licensing Plan

More advanced licensing plan for bigger projects. Unlike Express Licensing Plan, it allows you to expand the number of hostnames, servers, or CPUs. Also, it includes additional technical support options such as technical support through the help desk system with guaranteed 24-hour response time, as well as two free development/QA environment licenses (additional licenses for extra dev/QA environments can be purchased).

Please note that after you have purchased the Standard license, you cannot purchase Express licenses for the same project. Appropriate domain connector licenses need to be bought instead.

Professional Licensing Plan

A license plan similar to the Standard Licensing Plan, but includes additional features especially important for photo business companies. Features available in the Professional Licensing Plan include unlimited size for thumbnail (Express and Standard are limited with 3 MPix), quality meter and preservation of EXIF metadata and image resolution.

How Many Domain Connectors to Order?

One license (regardless to the licensing plan) gives you a right to use the product with one website with a single full-qualified domain name (hostname). You may have a question what to do if you have multiple domain names associated with a website.

If you purchase an Express license, you just purchase as many licenses as many hostnames you want to use with Image Uploader.

If you purchase Standard or Professional license, one domain name is covered with this license, and all others should be covered with so-called domain connectors. Domain connectors is a kind of extensions for the "master license". It costs noticeable less than the license itself, so if your website is used on several domains, it should not skyrocket the price.

So the number of connectors should equal to the number of domains minus 1. For example, you want to upload files on three domains: www.example.com, www.example.net, and sub.example.com. You should purchase a single Standard or Professional license and two domain connectors.

Sometimes the number of domains may be extremely large or even dynamic (especially if subdomains are used). It may be a sign that you really need a licensing plan for software vendors, but if it is not your case, please contact us. We can agree about the special connector which will remove limitations for the number of domains on your site.

How Many Server Connectors to Order?

One license allows to use Image Uploader to upload files to the single server with up to 2 CPUs. If CPU has multiple cores, the rule is the following - multi-core CPU is deemed as a single unit unless it has more than 8 cores. Otherwise each extra core is deemed to be a separate CPU. So if you have a common quad CPU, a license is fine for it, but if you have, say, SPARC with, say, 32 cores, single license is not enough.

What to do if your setup is more advanced than the license allows? As in case of multiple domains, the answer is you should purchase so-called server connectors. Each server connector extends the "master license" and allows to use extra server, CPU, or core.

How the amount of server connectors is calculated? The idea is simple. One connector is required per extra item.

For example, you have two 4-CPU servers. One Standard or Professional license covers only one 2-CPU server. So you need to cover two extra CPUs, one extra server, and two extra CPUs on this server. So, in this case, the total number of connectors will be 5.

You may wonder what do to with virtual environments. If the website is running inside of a virtual server on a powerful web farm with tons of servers and CPUs, there is no need to license real hardware. You should purchase licenses for virtual servers only. As usual hosting providers such as Amazon EC2 allocate virtual resources in base units which are equivalent to an average single-CPU server. This is the unit you should purchase a server connector for.

Extra Options

Private Label Option

Private label (sometimes referred as "white label") is a custom version built specifically for your business. It displays your business name and product name, instead of 'Aurigma, Inc.' and 'Image Uploader'. This can increase trust for your web site users, since the component will appear as supplied by the company that owns the site they are visiting.

To get a private label version you need to do two things:

1. Obtain a special digital code signing certificate from Thawte or VeriSign (if you do not have it already).
2. Order a private label option along with licenses. Of course you can purchase licenses first, and get a private label version later.

Private label can be purchased for the Standard or for the Pro version. It is not available for the Express license plan.

If you are interested to get a quote, feel free to contact our sales department.

Source Code Option

Another extra item you can order along with licenses is the source code. It gives an additional confidence for you that you can always support the product. Also you will be able to personalize it and add custom features if you are the standard functionality is not enough.

Source code is provided under certain restrictions:

• Disclosure to third parties is not allowed (including but not limited with selling, leasing, or just publishing).
• You are allowed to modify the source code, but you cannot create a derivative product.
• You cannot copy any portions of code to another software (unless you have an explicit written permission).
• You still need to purchase appropriate licenses and connectors.
• Source code is available for Standard or Professional license plan only.

Development/QA Environment Licenses

When you develop a web project you are unlikely do it on a live website. As usual you deploy it somewhere on internal servers and make changes there. After that you test it and then deploy it on a production servers.

Since Image Uploader is licensed per a production website, you may find out that it does not work in your development or quality assurance environment. What to do in this case?

We have a special kind of license for this situation called development/QA environment license. It is issued for the hostname of your dev/QA environment according to the same rules as domain connectors. The only difference is that you are not allowed to use Image Uploader with these licenses in the production environment.

When you purchase Standard or Professional license, we provide up to 2 free dev/QA licenses. You should just request them by submitting a special case.

If these free licenses are not enough for your development/QA environment, you can order additional dev/QA licenses for a nominal price. Contact our sales department for a quote.

Examples

Scenario 1

You are developing a small self-funded website. It is running on one server. Website has a single domain name (e.g. www.example.com). You downloaded an evaluation package and made sure that you can use Image Uploader SDK without external assistance.

Most likely, in this case one Express License would do.

Scenario 2

You create a big website which runs on a web farm consisting of 8 single-CPU servers. This website has 2 aliases (e.g. www.example.com and www.example.net). Technical support in a guaranteed time frame is important for your project. No special photo business related functionality is necessary.

In this case, the Standard License will be fine for you. You should extend this license with appropriate connectors. As a result you should purchase the following items:

• Standard License - 1 item
• Server Connector - 7 items (1 Server Connector is already included into the Standard License)
• Domain Connector - 1 item (1 Domain Connector is already included into the Standard License)

Scenario 3

You create an online photo order solution. It is crucial to have Image Uploader to generate high resolution thumbnails. Your solution is running on 4 servers. Also, before you run the website into production you need to test it on 3 different internal websites. Each of 4 your developers have their own hostname. In other words, total number of dev/QA environment hostnames is 7. 

To have the photo business related features you should purchase the Professional License. You also need to have additonal connectors and extra dev/QA licenses. As a result, the following items should be purchased:

• Professional License - 1 item
• Server Connector - 3 items (1 Server Connector is already included into the Professional License)
• Extra Dev/QA License - 5 items (2 Dev/QA Licenses are already included into the Professional License)