How Intercept X licensing mechanism works ?

Question

Users mostly work remotely these days. So we expanded our licenses for securing our digital network eco system through our reliable solution partner Sophos. But first of all, how licensing mechanism works in cloud? Do system work for per user or per machine ? I read some KBs about this and they wrote licensing works per user. Then we asked our local provider for once and they said it works for per machine. A bit confused in there. Anyhow we expanded our licenses because of immidiate conditions. 
 I just would like to know more clear approach for future purposes.

Jasmin · Accepted Answer

Hi Can carmack 
 It is different for Endpoint protection (Client OS) and Server protection (Server OS) for the cloud. 
 License calculation for Endpoint protection works per user and for Server protection works per machine. There is an only exception for Terminal server and for that license will be calculated as per user. 
 Please refer the licensing guidelines here .

Jasmin · Answer

Hi Can carmack 
 The license used for the first two scenarios will be one. Laptop and office desktops both are on the same domain and the user who is logged to the both the machines is using his/her domain account. 
 For the last scenario, if the different domain has transitive trust with the domain of the user account, then the license count should be 1 as well.

MEric · Answer

Note that the only way that Sophos Central will receive communication from a deleted client is if the software has been reinstalled. The docs suggest removing the software before deleting the machine from Sophos Central to avoid having to manually go onto the machine in safe mode to remove the software. If the machine was reimaged without the software, it is safe to delete. 
 In terms of licensing if a machine has not communicated to Sophos Central within the last 30 days, it will stop counting towards a license.

MEric · Answer

If you remove/delete a computer from Sophos Central it should stop counting towards a license even if the software has not been uninstalled. Simply uninstalling the software will leave the computer on Sophos Central and that user will keep using a license for 30 days, until they are seen as inactive. There's no option to uninstall via Sophos Central but you can create a batch file to uninstall and push this out to endpoints via Group Policy. 
 Your best bet for finding active/inactive users or computers on Sophos Central is to go into Logs & Reports > Users or Logs & Reports > Computers and choose the active or inactive tabs. This can also be exported out to PDF or CSV.

Jasmin · Answer

Hi Can carmack 
 Yes, correct before deleting the machine from the Sophos central, we advise uninstalling the Endpoint protection from the machine if you are going to decommission the machine. 
 If you delete the machine from Sophos Central without uninstalling the Sophos, machine entry will be popped up in the Sophos Central as soon as Central receives communication from the client. 
 Now coming to your scenario, I think you'll format the machine to make it usable soon, so in that case, Sophos will not be able to communicate with Sophos central and you can safely delete the entry from Sophos Central.