How are licenses counted?

Your account will be provisioned with some number of connection licenses based how many you purchased. The number of licenses you have is the number of connections you can deploy across all of your integration processes. The rule of thumb is one license per unique connection per runtime (basic runtime, runtime cluster, or cloud). 

A unique connection is determined by the component ID. If the component IDs of two connections are the same, the platform determines it is the same connection. However, if the component ID is different (even though everything else is the same e.g. you made a copy of the connection), it will be treated as two separate licenses if you deploy both connections. You can deploy one connection a million times and it would still be counted as one license. 

Your license count is on the Licensing page (Setup > Licensing). 
 

How do I get more licenses?

If you need more connection licenses, please contact your Boomi account manager. 

Are connectors and connections the same?

A connector is made up of a connection (where to go) and an operation (what to do). Licenses are only counted by connections so you could have 100 connectors using the same connection and it would be counted as one license. Those connectors could have many different operations doing different things using the same connection information. 
 

When do I need another connection?

You will need another connection if you need different combinations of values (like credentials or URL, etc) in the connection fields (that won't work with extensions or aren't extensible) come deployment time. Whenever a different set of values is required, a separate connection must be used. Again, you can use the same connection with different combination of operations though (e.g. query Salesforce customer and create Salesforce customer). 
 

What are connector classes?

Connection licenses are categorized and provisioned by connector classes: Small Business, Standard, Enterprise, and Trading Partner. The class doesn't change how licenses work, they would just be counted under that specific class pool if they fall into that category. Examples of classes:

• Small Business - QuickBooks, Sage 50/Peachtree
• Standard - the majority of connections fall under this category, SFTP, Disk, Mail, Salesforce, NetSuite, HTTP Client, Web Services SOAP Client
• Enterprise - SAP, Oracle E-Business
• Trading Partner - your trading partners' profiles, each trading partner component is counted as a license not each of the communication types inside of it

The specific connection type is not important. If you had five licenses, you can deploy five salesforce connections; three salesforce, one disk, one FTP; or any combination of five or less of those standard connections.
 

License count examples

Licenses are calculated upon deployment. If you have enough, the deployment will finish, if not it will not finish and tell you that you need more licenses.  The rule of thumb is one license per unique connection per runtime (basic runtime, runtime cluster, or cloud). A unique connection is determined by the component ID.

If you have two basic runtimes in an environment, the licenses will be doubled since it is counted per basic runtime. You can have as many connections in the build tab as you want, they are not counted since they are not deployed. 
 

Scenario	Licenses	Why?
A single process with 2 unique connections is deployed to an environment with 1 basic runtime	2	There are 2 unique connections
Two processes each containing the same 2 unique connections are deployed to an environment with 1 basic runtime	2	There are 2 unique connections, each is re-used once so it's the same component ID
A single process with 2 unique connections is deployed to an environment with 2 basic runtimes attached	4	There are 2 unique connections, but there are 2 basic runtimes in that environment so they are counted twice
A single process containing 2 unique connections is deployed to an environment with a runtime cluster consisting of 3 nodes.	2	There are 2 unique connections and only 1 runtime cluster, it does not matter how many nodes the runtime cluster has
Fifty processes containing 3 unique connections are deployed to an environment with 1 basic runtime	3	There are 3 unique connections. Even though they are used by 50 processes, it is still 3 unique connections
A process containing 2 unique connections are deployed to an environment with 1 runtime cluster, then a test copy of the process is deployed to the same environment	4	There were 2 unique connections, but then the process was copied for testing so the connections are duplicated but assigned a new component ID. Therefore, 4. Note: if the user remembered to use the same connections used in the original process in the copied process, then it would be 2 licenses

 

What are production and test connection licenses?

Connections are further broken down into production and test licenses that can be purchased separately. Production licenses are counted when connections are deployed on an environment with the production classification and test licenses are counted when deployed to environments with the test classification. The production and test licenses behave exactly the same way, there are slight differences in the environments though such as email alerts are not sent out for test environment. 
 

Scenario	Licenses	Why?
A single process containing 2 unique connections is deployed to both a "Test" environment containing a single basic runtime and a "Production" environment containing a runtime cluster	2 test and 2 production licenses	There are 2 unique connections in each environment

 

Are some connections/connectors not counted as a license?

Some connections do not count as a license such as the Boomi Enterprise Platform API connection and Web Services Server connector. The most updated list is here. The current list:

• AS2 Shared Server connector
• Basic runtime Queue connector
• Boomi Enterprise Platform API connector
• Boomi Enterprise Platform Partner API connector
• Flow Services Server connector
• MDM connector
• MDM Listener connector
• MLLP Server connector
• Web Services Server connector

All other connections to other endpoints in the processes do count towards licenses like normal. 
 

Do custom connectors count towards licensing?

Yes, connections for custom connectors developed using the Connector SDK count towards licensing.
 

How can I optimize my license usage?

• Reuse existing connections instead of making new ones. This will reduce confusion and simplify maintenance in addition to minimizing connection usage
• To help with reuse, as best practice organize and consolidate all connection components into a single common folder within the Build console. You may wish to restrict access to this folder to administrators or super-users
• As part of your process deployment procedure, confirm only “official” connections (those residing in the common folder) are referenced in the to-be-deployed process. Use Compare Deployment to compare the list of components in the to-be-deployed process version to the previously deployed version to determine if any new connections have been introduced by accident
• Use environment extensions instead of having separate connections for each environment, such as a sandbox and production connection
• Sometimes separate connections are required while developing and testing in Test Mode, requiring you to configure connection values directly instead of using extensions. In these situations create a separate connection but be sure to replace with the “official” connection before deploying. Adopt a naming convention to avoid confusion (e.g. “Database ABC DEV DO NOT DEPLOY”)
• Some connections allow for parameterization, you can change the field value of a connection with a document property or something else:
  • Disk - the directory (file path) can be parameterized with the document property Directory (in a set properties step before the disk connector). A single disk connection should be sufficient for your entire account if you use it in conjunction with the document property
  • FTP - unique per FTP host and credentials. Remote directory path is configured separately in the operation component
  • HTTP client - unique per base URL. Recommend configuring only the base URL (e.g. www.myendpoint.com) in the connection and pairing with different or dynamically-configured operations to connect to multiple resource paths

 

The licensing page

The licensing page will show you which connections are counted as a license and how many you have purchased and deployed. The license panels are exportable. 



The Connections By Class (top panel) shows a summary of connections purchased, deployed, and available by connection class. The Connectors Deploy in Class (bottom left panel) shows the connections deployed for the class (and test or production) selected in the Connections By Class panel. The Deployments (bottom right panel) shows which runtime the connection is deployed to and in which process. This list can be filtered by clicking on the columns or exported for further examination. 
 

Common Licensing Issues

How do I determine where a specific connection is used?

To determine in which deployed processes uses a certain connection:

1. Go to the Licensing page (Setup > Licensing)
2. In the Connections By Class panel, click the connector class and environment classification e.g. Standard (Test) if you want to look for standard connections deployed to an environment with the test classification
3. In the Connectors Deploy in Class panel, find the connection name or component ID. You can sort or use the browser's find functionality (Crtl+F)
4. Click on the connection
5. The Deployments panel will show all processes and runtimes containing the given connection

You can use this information to determine if the connection is accidentally referenced by a process or incorrectly deployed to an environment. 
 

Deployment Error Message: “Deployment rejected: attempted to deploy X more Standard connection(s). Doing so would exceed your purchases for this connector class by X connection(s)”

This means you are deploying a process(es) that needs more connections than you currently have available in your account. To resolve, try the following:

1. Make sure your process is using the same connections you have already deployed. Check the component IDs of the deployed connections versus the ones in the process. If you go to the build tab and click on Extensions, the connection drop down will tell you what connections you are using
   • Modify your process to reuse an existing deployed connection instead of creating a new connection, if applicable
   • Remove extra/unused connections. Note: connections referenced by disconnected steps (perhaps left over from development/testing) will still count towards licenses unless you remove them
   • Remember connections can be referenced by steps other than connector steps, such as decisions, set properties, map functions, etc. 
2. Look for opportunities to consolidate redundant connections that are really connecting to the same endpoint or can be parametrized for re-use
3. See the "How can I optimize my license usage?" section above
4. Look for processes and/or environments that are no longer used and undeploy processes or detach runtimes from environments
5. Contact your account manager to obtain additional connection licenses

 

Will having more basic runtimes affect my licenses?

You can install as many basic runtimes as you want. Licenses are based on deployed connections. The number of basic runtimes will only matter if you deploy to an environment that has multiple runtimes attached to it since it is one license per unique connection per runtime.
 

I do not think the license page's count is accurate, how do I determine if that's true or not?

You can do your own examination to see if the license page's count is accurate or not.

1. In the Connections By Class panel, click the connector class you think has the wrong count
2. The Deployments panel will update. Export that information and open in excel (or equivalent)
3. Go to the Data tab, you can then use the "Remove Duplicates" button
4. Choose the basic runtime name and connector name as the columns to sort by and it'll give you the list of unique connectors

The above works if you use unique names for each connection. It won't be 100% accurate otherwise. For example, let's say you have a disk connector with name ABC and component ID 123. If you deploy (to the same environment) another disk connector named ABC also, but it has a different component ID 456, the excel spreadsheet isn't going to know that. It'll remove that entry as a duplicate. If you have something like that, it won't be 100% accurate but pretty close. You will have to do a little bit more manual work to supplement by looking at your connectors with the same name but different component IDs and accounting for them.