Due to the large number of potential users, site licenses can be very expensive if available at all. Floating licenses are bought based on the expected number of simultaneous users of the software and more licenses can be purchased if the number of users increases. Unfortunately, we cannot dictate the type of license a vendor will offer for their software product. To further complicate matters, some software applications are not available for all four supported workstation types. Thus some applications will run locally on any of the four supported ALW workstation types, some on only one or two.
Some applications are only available with single cpu licenses.
In cases where an application is not available locally for a particular workstation, the software is run remotely on a centrally supported ALW workstation called an application server. When a user starts the application on their local workstation, the workstation contacts the application server and starts the application there sending the display back to the user's workstation. The result is transparent to the user as the application appears to be running locally. ALW strives to obtain software and licenses for all supported workstations. The number of applications which use remote application servers has decreased over the years as vendors have ported their software to more workstation types and have switched to using floating licenses.