Overview of 10Duke Enterprise

10Duke Enterprise is a cloud-based licensing solution that allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to configure, issue, and manage the licenses they sell to their customers.

With 10Duke Enterprise, you (the vendor) can control access to your software applications as well as plug-ins, embedded software, virtual machines, devices, and APIs.

We use the term “control access” rather than “sell” deliberately. Even in cases where you provide your software free of charge, you want to control access to it in some way. With 10Duke Enterprise, you can license your software regardless of whether you’re selling it or providing it at no cost.

These overview articles give you an introduction to the core concepts and elements within 10Duke Enterprise, together with a number of specific use case examples. They aim to help you to both understand how 10Duke Enterprise is structured and how you can apply its capabilities to the particular use case you have.

Read about the 10Duke Enterprise key features below.

Identity-based licensing

10Duke Enterprise implements the concept of “identity-based licensing”. Identity-based licensing is a method of controlling access to a digital product (or any protected resource) based on the authenticated identity of an individual.

With identity-based licensing, you have more flexibility in terms of the licensing terms under which you can make your products available to a customer. You’re able to improve the ease and security with which your customer can access and interact with your products, and you can apply consistent license models across a range of products that you offer to your customers.

10Duke Enterprise does not use the concept of a license key in its design, but rather uses a JSON web token (JWT) as the primary mechanism for communicating with your client software or device.

Note that controlling access to applications using licensing is different from traditional role-based access control (RBAC). 10Duke Enterprise supports RBAC, but this is typically used in more advanced use cases. The 10Duke Enterprise RBAC capability is powerful yet simple to configure, and allows you to define and configure access to licenses and the 10Duke administration tools.

Device-based licensing

Device licensing is a way to grant licenses that allow your customers to access your software that is installed on particular hardware. It allows you to authorize the devices to use an organization license instead of authorizing specific users. Anyone with access to the device has access to the software.

Example use cases could be that your B2B customers run your software on shared computers where it needs to be accessible without user registration, or that you are selling devices with embedded software.

APIs delivered from the cloud

As a cloud solution, 10Duke Enterprise reduces the manual steps needed for licensing for both you, the software vendor, and your customers. No need to deliver and keep track of license keys or maintain on-premise license servers—you can enable your customers to purchase, install, and start using your software application quickly and easily.

Single-tenant deployment

10Duke Enterprise is deployed as a single-tenant environment dedicated to your operations. Your data is stored in a secure and isolated manner, and there is no competition of resources, ensuring security and reliability of services.

The single-tenant deployment can be configured to suit any specific requirements you may have for your licensing. You can also choose what customizations you need, and you have control over what version updates you want and when in your own deployment.