Adobe Installation and Licensing

[Note: After a few comments & questions on this blog about Sassafras Software KeyServer support with CS6, we have asked John Tomeny, VP of Business Development at Sassafras Software to make a guest appearance.]

Following are some notes to address the many questions here around the use of K2-KeyServer to manage either concurrent use, ELA, or per-device licensing.

Adobe continues to offer concurrent use licensing for CS6 products. As with previous product versions, a concurrent license specifies various terms and conditions, including the requirement of an effective method to ensure license limits are not exceeded. Here are a some relevant links on the Adobe site (revised April 20, 2012) :

http://www.adobe.com/volume-licensing/policies.html#concurrency-policy

http://www.adobe.com/volume-licensing/calculator.html

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/volume-licensing/pdfs/CLP5_Program_Guide_v3_EN.pdf

The new activation requirement for CS6 ensures that every installation will only run in trial mode until explicitly activated for each installed instance. Copying or cloning components from an activated installation to another computer will cause the copy to revert to trial mode – an activation process must be run on each new computer installation. This activation requirement simply converts the software from trial (expiring) to fully operable without performing any checks on licensing restrictions.

Adobe provides three methods for executing the activation process. Standard retail purchases include an install code much like previous product versions. But with CS6, the AAMEE deployment tool provides two additional methods for creating fully activated installations. Login to the AAMEE tool using your Adobe account credentials, then, based on your purchase records, you can create a custom installer that will silently install and activate a specific CS6 product configuration. Alternately, AAMEE can create an activation tool, again using your Adobe account credentials and purchase records. The activation tool is then used on each computer where an unactivated installation has been deployed by some other method (trial installation, copied, or cloned installation, etc.) in order to activate full functionality.

For more about AAMEE 3.0 and deployment of CS6 see:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/creativesuite/enterprisedeployment.html

License compliance for activated installations must still be managed according to the terms and conditions specified in your purchase. For example, if you have purchased a concurrent license, in addition to the activation step on various computers that may “potentially” use the product, the concurrent limit must be enforced on computers while “actually” using the product. If you have purchased a per-device license, careful management of which computers are activated may accomplish license compliance but it may be more feasible to audit and enforce a node-locked license policy using a license management tool that is able to disable the product on unlicensed computers.

K2-KeyServer can be used to enforce whichever CS6 license model you have acquired: either Concurrent use licensing, ELA Enterprise Licensing, or TLP/CLP per-device (“node Locked”) licensing rights. For more information about Adobe Volume Licensing see:

http://www.adobe.com/volume-licensing/policies.html

As always, the responsibility rests with the license administrator to understand both the licensing restrictions, and the licensing rights that have been purchased (e.g. suite vs. point product, concurrent vs. node locked metric, perpetual vs. expiring).

John Tomeny | VP, Business Development | Sassafras Software Inc

http://www.sassafras.com/

The latest and greatest and fastest and best looking version of  AAMEE is not in your hands…yet. That is right, the latest and greatest and fastest and best looking version of  AAMEE is the 3.0 release which is required to package CS6. The best way to get ahold of it right now is via a time machine. Please set the controls of your time machine for 5/14/12 which is the release date. Actually if you have a time machine, I suggest going further into the future where you can download AAMEE 3.1 which will undoubtedly be even better!

Okay, let’s think this through, if you have a time machine or if you are a time lord like Dr. Who, then is packaging up the Creative Suite for enterprise environments really a concern of yours?

If you do not have access to a time machine or the TARDIS (wasn’t it just a matter of time before we used this reference on this blog?) then hold tight. We will announce on this blog and on our @Adobe_ITToolkit Twitter account the links to the Adobe.com site locations where you can download AAMEE 3.0 and the new documentation. For those who have access to our Adobe Licensing Website (LWS is its own kind of time machine) then we will blog and tweet when AAMEE 3.0 is available on there. It might be different times or even dates when they are available as I am doing some significant clean up of the related docs and coordination of all these moving parts is like directing traffic at the airport. I don’t really know who I am in that metaphor. Probably the guy in the lost and found luggage department.

Jody Rodgers | Sr. Product Manager | Enterprise + Volume | Creative Suite + Creative Cloud | Adobe Systems

Adobe unveiled our new Creative Suite 6 and Creative Cloud offering today. And with that news, you as an IT admin probably have one question in mind: Why me? That’s right, the burden is square on your shoulders to package and get this new set of products into the hands of your users. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Got your back. We are there for you. Would we leave you hanging? Okay, historically you could say that we have in fact, left you hanging. So to speak.  But let’s not dwell on history. In fact let’s not even dwell on the present. Let’s talk about the future. Far, far into the future. Imagine a time where people can communicate to anyone in the world or by the use of a computer that fits in their pants pocket. That’s right, I am talking about the year 2012. Imagine it is a week after CS6 is available for download on the Adobe Licensing Website and now imagine another blog post from me where I spend a long first paragraph not exactly getting to the point and eventually tell you that AAMEE 3.0 is available to download.

What is this AAMEE 3.0 that you speak of that will be out a week after CS6 ships? It is the third major release of the packaging tool called the Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition, but we call it AAMEE because we are risk of getting carpal tunnel for typing the whole name out. AAMEE 3.0 was made specifically to handle the CS6 media to prepare it for deployment by outputting it as a customized MSI or PKG. A special version of the product has been developed for the new licensing features of CS6 because we are trying really, really hard not to make your job harder than it is or impact your users. If you got the CS6 media and tried to deploy it without the use of AAMEE 3.0 then things will not go smoothly for you. You see, we have specifically designed this release so that your deployment of CS6 is enterprise friendly and so you don’t write me nasty emails or post mean spirited comments. Using traditional methods of packaging CS without AAMEE, doing manual installs, or creating images without the use of AAMEE 3.0 will lead to an excessive amount of unnecessary cursing. You don’t want that. We don’t want that. Are you seeing how you and this AAMEE 3.0 tool need each other?

We will go into the details of the AAMEE 3.0 release in the next couple of weeks in different posts, specifics about the new licensing and activation, and we will discuss and preview two new command line tools that will make your life easier. But for today, I just wanted to show you a quick sneak at the welcome screen of AAMEE 3.0. It has a simple and clean interface and is laser focused on doing one thing: packaging and licensing CS6. But wait, what about support for older versions of CS or other suites like Technical Communication Suite? What about support for packaging updates? What about the support for updating an exiting AAMEE package? Oh. Did you notice that? Would we do that? Would we take functionality OUT of a product? Would we do that to you? Um. Look over there! Is that an ice cream truck I hear? Okay, look, I have been straight with this community from day one. So let me say Y-E-S! I’ve broken the first rule of Product Management which is to not take features out that people like and use.

Now before you get your rotten tomatoes out let me tell you we already have a section of the AAMEE engineering working on a 3.1 release that will add some of the missing functionality. AAMEE 3.0 will meet the basic needs of IT admins supporting early adopters of CS6. In fact, it rocks at that. It straightforward and quick. In the second half of 2012 we will have a 3.1 release that will add some of the lost features. Well “lost” sounds like we simply misplaced them. That would not be accurate as we know where we left them, in AAMEE 2.1. Ha. That made me laugh. So, my work is done here.

Jody Rodgers | Sr. Product Manager | Enterprise + Volume | Creative Suite & Creative Cloud | Adobe Systems

Last month PS Touch for the iPad hit the streets to much acclaim. The iPad is truly becoming an essential tool in the creative process. Sure, it was already a super important device in the realm of distraction and general stalling. Speaking of, have you played Angry Birds Space HD? Amazing! Seriously, those annoying pigs are in S-P-A-C-E. How can I be expected to complete my work when their smug little green pig faces are laughing at me on a moon or hiding in the middle of an asteroid field?

So how are you going to get PS Touch or the other upcoming iPad apps from Adobe (Collage & Debut) out to folks in your design and marketing departments? To your classrooms? Queue the dramatic music and shine the spotlight on those large cutout letters of MDM sitting on the stage. That is right, Mobile Device Management (MDM) will make you, the tireless/tired IT admin the hero of this new decade the way desktop deployment solutions made you the heros of the last decade. Hyperbole? Okay, maybe a little. But the workplace of 2012 is changing fast and MDM is becoming essential.

With that long intro, I am happy to announce that one of our deployment and MDM partners, JAMF Software, has published documentation Administering Adobe Photoshop Touch with the Casper Suite  which details how purchase via Apple’s Volume Purchase Program also known by its street name, VPP. Then the document details how to deploy through two methods: personal and institutional ownership models. The institutional method uses the newly released Apple Configurator tool. BTW, a shout out to Apple for birthing that tool! And last but not least, the document covers reporting; viewing redeemed VPP codes and tracking the devices that have PS Touch installed.

I want to thank the many folks at JAMF who put this document together and helped us create a clear path for our combined customers. It is so great to have a clear path outlined like this. Speaking of clear paths, I see a direct clear path to smashing down the barricades of some pigs…gotta go!

Jody Rodgers | Senior Product Manager | Enterprise + Volume | Creative Suite | Adobe Systems

*** Guest Blogger Annick Mohageg- Baudot, Product Marketing for Adobe***

When you install the new Photoshop CS6 beta you’ll notice that you’re asked to provide an Adobe ID. Using an Adobe ID to register software was optional in the past, so you may wonder why it’s being required now.

Starting with Creative Suite 6, all Adobe product licenses will be associated with an Adobe ID. We’ve changed our installation process to make it easier for our customers to use a single Adobe ID to access all things Adobe, including Adobe Creative Cloud memberships, “perpetual” product and Suite serial numbers, subscriptions, Adobe Touch Apps, and protected areas of Adobe.com.

From now on, you’ll need to complete a one-time login and online product activation, either at installation or within seven days of installing a beta or Creative Suite 6 perpetual product; otherwise, the product will stop working. For our customers who work in secure environments where some computers can’t connect to the Internet, an offline activation process will be in place. Offline activation involves using an Internet-enabled device to log in to Adobe.com and activate the offline computer. (Note that there is no offline activation process for the Photoshop CS6 beta.) For our volume licensing customers, only the IT administrator will be required to do a one-time log in and activate a license during software packaging and deployment — end users will not be required to log in and activate individually.

Why only a seven-day window for login and online activation? We’ve found that seven days covers the needs of most customers who are experiencing temporary Internet issues (e.g., due to travel or connectivity problems). At the same time, a seven-day window helps protect customers from being duped into purchasing high-quality counterfeit software.

How? Up until now, high-quality counterfeit has been difficult to detect. Customers often only find out about it months after a purchase, usually when troubleshooting software or serial number issues. (Read Photoshop’s Jeff Tranberry’s blog about high-quality counterfeit http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshopdotcom/2011/07/protect-yourself-from-pirated-and-counterfeit-software.html). By then, any opportunity to get money back has been lost. Adobe’s new seven-day login and activation requirement enables customers to find out at installation if they’ve purchased counterfeit software, giving them enough time to block payment on a credit card and/or apply for the money-back guarantee that some Marketplaces offer.

In the next few weeks, we’ll provide more information about the new installation requirements. If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to post them below.

The cat is out of the bag! Mac OS X 10.7 aka Lion is roaming the streets and you brave Mac IT admins have been deemed Lion Tamers by the public at large. Or at least by me. I’ve managed a few OS compatibility assessments in my past and it is no easy task to gather up all the necessary info from the software publishers that are used in your environment, run/coordinate testing, etc. You are seeking the cold hard facts while a percentage of your users are barging down the door to upgrade due to justifiable work reasoning such as “shininess” and “Ars said I should.” Actually they said “Don’t just run out and upgrade your system as soon as you finish this review.” But who reads the second paragraph of the Recommendations section anyway?

And for that matter, who reads the second paragraph of my blog entries? We have two relevant pages for you and we will be keeping them up to date if new things are discovered, fixed, etc.

Creative Suite FAQ: Mac OS X Lion (v10.7) Compatibility
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/faq.html#lion-os

Known Issues with Adobe products on Mac OS 10.7 Lion
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/905/cpsid_90508.html

Also worth noting that if you are creating an image for Lion that the Flash Player plug-in is not installed for Safari.

And last but not least, what about your own Mac? I know what you are asking: 1) Does Spotify work on Lion? and 2) Can I create packages using Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition 2.0 (also known “on the streets” as AAMEE) using Lion? I don’t have the answer for the first one and seems rather off-topic but I can report that we have done testing both of the AAMEE application and of AAMEE-produced packages on Lion and everything has checked out fine. If you experience something different please feel to use the comments to let us know. So feel free to let AAMEE hang out in the blurred space scene of Launchpad and click on it at will.

Stay cool. Literally.

Jody Rodgers | Senior Product Manager | Enterprise & Volume | Creative Suite | Adobe Systems

Although it is a slow process apparently, email notifications are starting to go out to our enterprise customers who have access to CS 5.5 through LWS this week. If you are unfamiliar with LWS, it is our Licensing Web Site for Adobe Volume Licensing (AVL) customers. It is also where order history, serials, and downloads of our electronic media reside. How about that name LWS though? Nothing says “relic of a bygone era” like a site with the name Web Site in it. Let’s just pretend the WS in LWS stands for Walking Shoes or Western Saddle. How about Worcestershire Sauce? I am fully aware that Licensing Worcestershire Sauce makes no sense, but I am somehow more okay with an absurd name than an overtly redundant one.

I just got word this morning that Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition (AAMEE) 2.0 has also made its way up to LWS as well! This is a whole week ahead of our scheduled release to the public website. How awesome is that? On the Scale of Awesomeness I would give it a 7 out of 10. Why not higher? Well I would give it a 9 of 10 if we were able to have AAMEE 2.0 available on our public DevNet site today as well, but we’ll have it up this time next week and I will post when this occurs with the link. How could it be a 10 out of 10 on the Scale of Awesomeness? This would involve simultaneous availability AND free candy. The free candy bit would bump it up. Don’t underestimate the power of free candy. They made a whole holiday based on it.

Related links:

Adobe Licensing Website (LWS)
https://licensing.adobe.com/

Adobe Volume Licensing (AVL) FAQ
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/100/1003400.html

Jody Rodgers | Senior Product Manager | Enterprise & Volume | Creative Suite

I’ve been trying to arrange some interviews with some folks both internally and externally for this blog, just trying to mix things up, keep things fresh. I thought with the announcement early last week of Adobe Creative Suite CS 5.5 this would be a great time to do a little Q&A with someone from Adobe to talk about what’s new with the CS 5.5 release. But I failed to get anything setup so I have nobody, not even Eric Wilde. Eric would of been good. I know what you are thinking, maybe you should give up the idea of doing an interview. Nope. The show must go on! I am going to interview… myself. This way I can GUARANTEE the next Q&A we have here will be better.

Jody: How’s it going?
Jody: Great. Except for the part of having to interview myself.
Jody: Which Adobe office are you based out of?
Jody: I work out of the Seattle office. It is in the Fremont neighborhood right along the canal.
Jody: Which product teams are in Seattle?
Jody: These days most teams have people working collaboratively in different offices across the globe so there isn’t many full teams in one location. Having said that Seattle’s biggest groups though are InDesign, After Effects, Audition and the new Digital Publishing group. There are folks from the Creative Suite group, some members of the XD (Experience Design) team, and there are a few Acrobat guys down the hall from me too.
Jody: How many years have you been at Adobe?
Jody: It will be 9 years this summer.
Jody: So enough about you. Tell us about the Creative Suite 5.5 release!
Jody: Well I am not in Marketing so I think I’d mess that up.
Jody: Okay, well do you have anything to announce because I am starting to lose interest?
Jody: I do! In conjunction with the 5.5 launch, we will be releasing the next version of the Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition (AAMEE.) AAMEE 2.0 should be available for download the second week of May 2011.
Jody: And will it only work with CS 5.5?
Jody: No, AAMEE 2.0 will work with CS 5.0 and CS 5.5 media. And it will work with 5.0 and 5.5 related updates.
Jody: Is it still free?
Jody: Ha. Yes.
Jody: Can you give us a sneak peek into the new features?
Jody: I was going to wait until the release announcement in May to talk about the new features.
Jody: That would be lame. Tell us now! At least tell us something.
Jody: Okay I will tell you about one. This is big actually. No, I should wait.
Jody: What? Tell us.
Jody: In-app updates!
Jody: I want to be excited, but explain.
Jody: So you know how with the current version of AAMEE you have to download updates form the CS Updates Blog and you have to manually add them when you are creating your initial application package or you are making an update package for deployment?
Jody: Yep, and it is a bit of a pain.
Jody: I know. Wouldn’t it be great if from within AAMEE it showed the latest updates and you could select which ones to download all from within the app?
Jody: Yes. That would save a lot of time.
Jody: Well that is what we’ve introduced in AAMEE 2.0.
Jody: What if I have to create a bunch of packages, do I have to download the updates over and over?
Jody: Nope. AAMEE caches them and shows you a visual indicator designating that the download is already cached.
Jody: That’s cool. But what if I already have the updates downloaded in a folder or I am using the Adobe Update Server?
Jody: You’ll still be able to manually add them. We didn’t remove that functionality.
Jody: Great. What else is in AAMEE 2.0?
Jody: You’ll have to wait until May’s announcement.
Jody: Sigh. So speaking of updates are you guys ever going to put your Windows updates into the Microsoft SCUP catalog like Acrobat and Flash Player?
Jody: Good question.
Jody: Thanks.
Jody: I attended the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2011 last month with some colleagues from Acrobat and heard firsthand how much people appreciated Acrobat and Flash for doing this. We are looking into the feasibility of doing this with the Creative Suite updates. Possibly doing quarterly SCUP releases except when CS updates have security patches, those would have to come straight away.
Jody: Similar to Acrobat and Flash Player?
Jody: Yep.
Jody: So when can we expect to see the CS Updates in SCUP format?
Jody: I was afraid you were going to ask that.
Jody: People will want to know.
Jody: I can’t commit to a date yet but will let folks know on this blog as soon as possible. And we’ll probably make a public call for testers to help out.
Jody: Okay, one last question. What are you most looking forward to with the 5.5 release?
Jody: You mean besides AAMEE 2.0?
Jody: Right.
Jody: Audition 5.5! I am a long time Mac user and I like to dabble with audio and multimedia projects and I have been wanting a Mac version of Audition since it was Cool Edit Pro. And now we have a Mac version of Audition. Good things come to those who wait. I actually used it in the Audition studio to record the last AAAMEE Adobe TV segment.
Jody: You have at audio studio in your office?
Jody: Well it is really more like a mixing room section of a recording studio.
Jody: Cool. Well thanks for your time today. This wasn’t actually as awkward as I thought it was going to be.
Jody: Really? You didn’t think so?
Jody: I’m just telling you that so you don’t feel bad.
_____
Jody Rodgers | Senior Product Manager | Enterprise & Volume | Creative Suite

Hi all,

Last month we asked for prerelease testers of an upcoming new licensing solution for the Suite. Our prerelease program is now active. Thanks to all of you who are helping us make Adobe’s licensing solution more robust and useful to customers.

A second prerelease build will be coming out soon. We’re ready to increase the size of our prerelease and have more testers engaged. If you’re interested in testing the licensing solution for an upcoming version of the suite, please let me know directly through email.

Please send me:

• Name
• Email address
• Corporation (if applicable)
• Role

We’ll be taking more testers throughout the weekend and into early next week or until we hit a maximum of another 200 testers.

Thanks,
–Eric
ewilde@adobe.com