On-Premise Usage-Based Licensing: Why Revenera FlexNet Falls Short
Enterprise software vendors are under constant pressure to modernize how they monetize their products — moving from rigid perpetual licenses toward subscription and consumption-based pricing. But for many of their largest customers, that modernization runs straight into a wall: cloud-hosted licensing infrastructure that their own security policies simply won't allow.
For example, that's exactly the position Foretellix — who've now moved to Nalpeiron — found themselves in. Foretellix builds test and simulation software used by automotive engineering teams to validate autonomous and safety-critical systems before they ship. Its licensing was built on Revenera's FlexNet platform — the same FlexNet Publisher technology (formerly known as FlexLM) that underpins licensing at thousands of engineering and enterprise software companies.
When Foretellix went looking for consumption-based licensing to match modern usage patterns, Revenera's own architecture became the obstacle. The story of why is a useful case study for any software vendor whose customers demand both modern monetization and on-premise, air-gapped deployment.
FlexNet Publisher vs. FlexNet Operations: One Brand, Two Very Different Products
Revenera markets FlexNet Publisher and FlexNet Operations as a single, unified licensing platform. In practice, they are two separate products that solve two different problems — and understanding the split is the key to understanding where FlexNet runs into trouble.
FlexNet Publisher is the embedded licensing technology that ships inside the vendor's application. It evaluates licenses, validates trusted storage, communicates with license servers, and grants or denies access to features at runtime. It's the descendant of the original FlexLM licensing library that many engineering and EDA (Electronic Design Automation) vendors have relied on since the 1990s.
FlexNet Operations is Revenera's back-office entitlement management platform. It creates customer entitlements, generates licenses and activation codes, handles fulfillment, tracks subscriptions and usage, and automates quote-to-cash processes — all from a cloud dashboard.
Here's what FlexNet Publisher and FlexNet Operations do:
| FlexNet Publisher |
|---|
| Embedded licensing SDK |
| Runs inside the application or the customer's own environment |
| Enforces licenses locally |
| Validates trusted storage |
| Supports node-locked, floating, and concurrent licensing |
| Primarily used by engineering teams |
| FlexNet Operations |
|---|
| Back-office entitlement management platform |
| Runs in Revenera's cloud or managed infrastructure |
| Creates and manages entitlements |
| Generates licenses and activation codes |
| Manages subscriptions, activations, fulfillment, and usage |
| Used by operations, product, finance, and licensing teams |
How the Two Products Work Together — and Where That Breaks Down
A typical FlexNet customer workflow looks like this:
- •
A customer purchases the software.
- •
FlexNet Operations, running in Revenera's cloud, creates the entitlement.
- •
FlexNet Operations generates the license certificate or activation code.
- •
The application — using the embedded FlexNet Publisher SDK — consumes that license.
- •
FlexNet Publisher enforces licensing locally, manages concurrent users, validates trusted storage, and enables the appropriate features.
In simple terms:
- •
FlexNet Publisher is the enforcement engine — "the lock."
- •
FlexNet Operations is the entitlement and fulfillment platform — "the key management system."
The problem is that step two — creating the entitlement — depends on FlexNet Operations, and FlexNet Operations depends on the cloud. If a customer's environment can't reach that cloud service, the modern half of Revenera's own platform is off the table, no matter how badly the vendor needs it.
The Challenge Foretellix Faced
Foretellix needed to support a specific combination of requirements:
- •
Consumption-based licensing
- •
On-premise deployments
- •
Air-gapped customer environments
- •
Kubernetes and Docker infrastructure
- •
Enterprise automotive customers with strict security requirements
Revenera's recommendation was straightforward: use FlexNet Operations for the modern licensing capabilities Foretellix wanted. The problem was that many of Foretellix's automotive customers — particularly in Japan and Korea — would not allow a cloud-hosted licensing platform inside their engineering environments at all.
That left Foretellix stuck on FlexNet Publisher alone, without the consumption-based licensing they needed, because the only path to it ran through infrastructure their customers wouldn't permit.
Senior Director of Software Engineering, Foretellix
"If you were to tell us that consumption-based licensing is only on the cloud, we could not continue."
The Architectural Difference: Cloud-Dependent vs. Fully On-Premise
This is where the two platforms genuinely diverge. Revenera's modern licensing capabilities live in FlexNet Operations, and FlexNet Operations only runs in the cloud — there's no on-premise deployment option for it. Nalpeiron Zentitle was built the opposite way: the same entitlement management, licensing, and consumption pricing capabilities run on a Local License Server, fully on the customer's own infrastructure.
For Foretellix, that was decisive. It meant consumption-based licensing didn't have to wait for a policy exception from every automotive customer's IT security team — it could simply run inside the environment they already controlled.
Why All This Matters For On-Premise Software Vendors
Many enterprise software vendors are trying to modernize how they commercialize their products at the same time:
- •
Usage-based pricing
- •
Consumption licensing
- •
Subscription models
- •
Feature-based monetization
At the same time, many of their largest and most valuable customers still require:
- •
On-premise deployments
- •
Air-gapped environments
- •
Private infrastructure
- •
Strict security and compliance controls
For those customers, a cloud-dependent licensing platform — like Revenera's FlexNet Operations — simply isn't an option, no matter how compelling the pricing model behind it is. Nalpeiron lets vendors modernize their monetization strategy without forcing their customers into the cloud.
Where FlexNet and FlexLM Fall Short Most Often
Chances are as an on-premise software vendor with customers who use your product in secure environments you may have the same challenges. The strongest signs you're facing the same wall show up as a specific combination:
- •
Running FlexNet Publisher — or its predecessor, FlexLM
- •
On-premise or air-gapped deployment requirements
- •
Floating or concurrent licensing in production today
- •
A desire to introduce usage or consumption pricing
- •
Kubernetes or Docker modernization initiatives underway
That combination shows up constantly across a specific set of industries:
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Automotive software
- •
Electronic Design Automation (EDA)
- •
Simulation software
- •
Industrial and manufacturing software
- •
Defense and aerospace
- •
Scientific and engineering applications
- •
Medical and healthcare software
If that list sounds familiar, Revenera and FlexNet were very likely built for a version of your business that existed before your customers demanded both modern pricing and full data sovereignty.
→Key Takeaway
Many enterprise software vendors are caught between modern commercial requirements and customers who cannot adopt cloud-based licensing infrastructure — and Foretellix's experience with Revenera's FlexNet platform shows exactly how that tension plays out in practice.
Rather than positioning Zentitle as simply another licensing platform, the useful framing is this: Nalpeiron delivers modern entitlement management, licensing, and consumption-based monetization across cloud, hybrid, and fully on-premise deployments — including completely air-gapped environments. That's a meaningfully different message than anything FlexNet Publisher or FlexNet Operations can offer in enterprise and regulated markets.
About the Author
Jon Gillespie-Brown is the Founder and CEO of Nalpeiron, a leader in cloud-based software licensing, entitlement management, software monetization, and analytics. With over 20 years of expertise, he works with enterprise B2B SaaS and IoT companies to optimize revenue models, accelerate go-to-market strategies, and scale with confidence. Jon is recognized as an authority in software licensing, software monetization, and software analytics, holds two issued U.S. patents, and is the author of five books. He also serves as a strategic guide to customers, helping them navigate and capitalize on the once-in-a-generation shift driven by AI, redefining how software is built, delivered, and monetized. For over 20 years, Jon has been a Professor at University of Colorado Boulder, a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, and an Entrepreneur in Residence at London Business School.
Nalpeiron: A Long-Term Partner for the AI Era
At Nalpeiron, we go beyond technology — we act as a strategic partner in licensing, monetization, and growth. For over twenty years, enterprise and IoT companies have trusted us to guide and evolve their business models.
As AI shifts software from seats to usage, outcomes, and agent-driven activity, legacy approaches fall short. Nalpeiron enables this transition through entitlements as the control plane — a centralized system of record across SaaS, on-prem, IoT, and offline environments.
From strategy to execution, we help companies adapt faster, launch new models, and stay in control — making Nalpeiron a partner for the AI-driven future of software monetization.
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