What is NVIDIA License Server?

The NVIDIA vGPU software License Server is used to serve a pool of floating licenses to NVIDIA vGPU software licensed products. The license server is installed at a location that is accessible from a customer’s network, and configured with licenses obtained from the NVIDIA Licensing Portal. Licensed vGPU functionalities are activated on a virtual machine (VM) during OS boot operation based on a software license served from the NVIDIA vGPU software license server. The license is returned to the license server when the VM shuts down.

Figure 1 : NVIDIA vGPU Software Licensing Architecture

The licenses served by the license server are obtained from the NVIDIA Licensing Portal as downloadable license files, and installed into the license server through the management interface. To provide NVIDIA vGPU software clients with continued access to NVIDIA vGPU software features if a single license server fails, you can configure the license server for high availability. High availability requires two license servers in a failover configuration:

• A primary license server, which is actively serving licenses to NVIDIA vGPUsoftware clients

• A secondary license server, which acts as a backup for the primary license server

Configuring two servers in a failover configuration increases continuous availability of the license server. The primary and secondary license servers work together to ensure that licenses in the enterprise are continually served to NVIDIA vGPU software clients. If the primary license server fails, failover occurs and the secondary license server can continue to serve licenses for up to the license server maintenance interval, which is seven days.