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Zero downtime licensing : New in Tableau 2021.1

No need to restart your server for most license updates

Tim Ngwena •29 March 2021 •1 min read •2 min watch •748

Part ofWhat's new in Tableau 2021.1

Zero Downtime Licensing applies only to Tableau Server, since Tableau Online handles licence key changes behind the scenes without a restart.
Previously you always had to restart Tableau Server so it could recognise newly added licence keys, but as of this release that is no longer needed for most updates.
The one exception is changing allowed data sources for embedded use cases, which still requires a server restart.
The feature lets you decouple upgrade scheduling from hard licence expiry deadlines, so upgrades can be done weeks apart from licence updates.

0:00Hey, it's Tim here. This is a super short

0:01video on a new feature in 2020.1 called

0:04Zero Downtime Licensing.

0:06Essentially this feature allows you to

0:07essentially add a state or add license keys

0:10to your server

0:11without having to restart them. Now there

0:13is a condition for this. Number one, this

0:15is only for

0:16Tableau Server. Tableau Online doesn't need

0:18a restart or any sort of reconfiguration

0:21whenever

0:21you add a license key to it. It's almost

0:23sort of done behind the scenes. But for

0:25Tableau Server,

0:26anytime you add anything in the past, you

0:28've always needed to restart the server so

0:30the server

0:31can recognize the keys. It's just a part of

0:33the process essentially. But as of 2020.1.1

0:36,

0:36essentially anytime you add anything, you

0:38don't need to restart the server. There is

0:41one exception

0:41there. That is the ability of adding

0:44allowed data sources. And this is specific

0:46for embedded use

0:47cases, essentially where you have to

0:49specify certain data sources up front. If

0:52you're changing

0:52those allowed data sources, then you're

0:54going to need to do a restart. You can just

0:56see it here

0:56in the matrix. So I'll include this link in

0:58the description below. Check it out. But if

1:00you're a

1:00server admin, hopefully this is just adding

1:03an additional nine to your uptime stats for

1:05the

1:06upcoming year. And hopefully it'll make

1:07your life a lot easier, especially when it

1:09comes to upgrades.

1:10Because essentially what people tend to do

1:12is they schedule upgrades with their

1:13licenses,

1:14when in fact maybe the upgrades can be done

1:16maybe a couple of weeks apart from when

1:19they're actually

1:19doing their license sort of updates,

1:21because you've got an absolute hard

1:23deadline when the license

1:24expires. So that's pretty much it. There's

1:26not much more to the video. Hopefully

1:28people find that

1:29useful. And yeah, catch me in the next

1:30video. I will be covering more features on

1:32Tableau Server

1:33as of this release. So be sure to check

1:35those out as and when they come in over the

1:37next couple of

1:38weeks. Catch you in the next one.

With zero downtime licensing, which was introduced in Tableau Server version 2021.1, you can apply most licensing changes to Tableau Server without needing to restart when license end dates, capacity, or installed features are changed. Find out more here: https://help.tableau.com/v2021.1/server/en-us/license\_zero\_downtime.htm