Licensing on-premises & air-gapped software

A vendor whose product runs inside the customer’s data center — sometimes with no internet path at all — who still needs enforced seats and real usage data.

The setup: the license is a signed artifact the software verifies by itself. Connectivity determines only how the artifact travels: over the network, or on a USB stick.

How the pieces map

You need	You use
N concurrent users on the customer’s cluster	Floating seat allocation — sessions check in and out; a released seat is immediately reusable
Install with no internet access	Offline activation: request file out, signed response in
Usage data from inside their network	The closed loop: the site exports a usage file, you ingest it in the portal, and the portal returns a signed receipt that renews the lease
Contract-term enforcement	A time-restricted or subscription policy — the license stops validating when the term ends, even fully offline
Consumption billing on-prem	Monitored assets tracked locally, reconciled at each file swap

Integration sketch

1. The application embeds the .NET SDK with the Client.OfflineStore add-on and the pinned public key. Connected sites activate online; air-gapped sites use the request/response file flow.
2. Usage accumulates in the local transaction store regardless of connectivity. Air-gapped sites export a ZIP on a cadence matched to the lease window; each ingest returns a signed receipt that extends the lease and truncates the local log.
3. An empty export is a legitimate lease ping — the swap cadence, not connectivity, is what keeps the site licensed.
4. The enforcement artifacts can’t be forged on the customer’s machines: the license and every ingest receipt are signed with the provider’s key and verified on-device with the public key alone. The exported usage log itself is plain data — treat it as reporting input the platform reconciles on ingest, not as tamper-proof evidence on its own.

What to tell procurement

No inbound connection to the customer’s network, no phone-home requirement, no secret material on their machines — and the vendor still gets enforced terms and audited usage.

See it live: the Bastion demo is this use case — an analysis platform inside an isolated network, activated by carrying a signed file across an air gap, accruing usage with no connection of any kind, and renewing its lease only when files are swapped back. Let the lease lapse and the site stops; one swap brings it back.

Start with the offline activation guide.