Overview
The EMS Server License Limit indicator reports that a monitored server or probe is not covered by your ENow licence.
This is about your ENow licence, not your Microsoft licences. EMS reports separately and extensively on Microsoft 365 licensing; that is a different feature describing your Microsoft subscription. This alert describes your entitlement to monitor a given server with EMS.
Monitoring Benefit
The EMS Server License Limit check identifies servers and probes that are being monitored outside your licence entitlement, and gives you a fourteen-day grace period to resolve the difference before EMS stops monitoring the affected server. It tells you which specific servers are involved rather than reporting a single environment-wide licence state, so you know exactly what you are about to lose visibility of.
How licence errors are tracked
Licence errors are tracked per server and per probe, not once for the environment. Two servers over the limit produce two separate licence errors, each with its own age, and each ages towards the end of the grace period independently of the other.
Affected servers are flagged on the main monitoring page:
| Flag | Meaning |
| Yellow | The server has a licence error and is inside the grace period. Monitoring continues. |
| Red | The licence error is older than the grace period. Monitoring of that server has stopped. |
The accompanying alert reads, during the grace period:
When license errors are 14 days old, monitoring of the affected servers will stop.
and once the grace period has passed:
Some license errors have exceeded the 14-day grace period and monitoring of those servers has stopped.
This enforcement is real, and it is per server. Once a licence error passes the grace period, EMS stops monitoring that server. Servers that are correctly licensed carry on being monitored as normal — the environment does not go dark, and there is no single moment at which everything stops. Each affected server drops out on its own fourteenth day.
The practical consequence is worth being explicit about: a server that has stopped being monitored is not reporting problems either. A red licence flag means you have lost visibility of that server, not merely that you owe a licence.
How server entitlement is determined
What counts against the limit depends on which licensing model you are on.
| Model | Server entitlement |
| Subscription | An unlimited number of Exchange servers. The limit that applies to you is the mailbox count, not the server count — see Mailbox License Limit. |
| Perpetual | You are licensed for a specific number of servers. Agents on servers beyond that number are not permitted to check in, and adding a server beyond the licensed count raises a dashboard alert against that server. |
Separately from the count, the licence also determines which ENow products may be used. Any product can be installed, but the licence governs which are usable — so a server can be reachable, agent-healthy and still refused because the product it is running was not purchased.
How do we verify the monitoring test results?
1. Identify which server is actually flagged. Because errors are tracked per server, the dashboard flag tells you which one. Do not assume an environment-wide licence problem from a single flagged server.
2. If you cannot find the flagged server on the dashboard, check whether you are using Sites.xml. This is the single most common reason a licence alert appears to have no corresponding indicator. When Sites.xml is in use, servers are not listed on the main monitoring page, so the alert has nowhere to display. Individual probes are never shown on the main monitoring page at all, so a probe licence error will always arrive as an alert with no dashboard counterpart. In both cases the alert is real and the absence of a flag is expected.
3. Confirm the model you are licensed under. On a subscription licence the server count is unlimited, so a server-related licence error usually points at product entitlement rather than at a count. On a perpetual licence, check the number of servers checking in against the number purchased.
4. Check the age of the error, not just its presence. The yellow and red flags distinguish inside and outside the grace period, and the two alert messages differ. A yellow flag on a server you have just added is expected behaviour, not a fault.
Common warning or error results, and potential solutions
| Result | Potential solution |
| Yellow flag — licence error inside the grace period | The server is not covered by your licence. Either remove it from monitoring or contact your reseller or ENow Support to extend the licence before the grace period ends. |
| Red flag — licence error past the grace period | Monitoring of that server has stopped and you no longer have visibility of it. Contact your reseller or ENow Support to restore coverage. |
| A server has gone quiet and stopped reporting | Check for a red licence flag before investigating the server itself. A server whose licence error has passed the grace period is no longer monitored, so it will report neither problems nor health. |
| A newly added server is flagged immediately | Expected on a perpetual licence when the server count has been exceeded. The agent on an unlicensed server is not permitted to check in. |
| Licence alert received but no server is flagged on the dashboard | Not a fault. Either Sites.xml is in use, in which case servers are not listed on the main monitoring page, or the error relates to a probe, which is never shown there. |
| A server is refused although the count is within the licence | Check product entitlement rather than count. The licence governs which ENow products may be used, independently of how many servers are licensed. |
Related
- Mailbox License Limit — the mailbox-count limit, which is the limit that applies on a subscription licence.
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