To replace Vienna Protection Plan on an iLok you will have to get it covered with Zero Downtime ZDT AND make absolutely sure to enable Theft/Loss Coverage for it!
ZDT without TLC does not provide you with permanent replacement licenses, you just get short lived temporary licenses which allow you to continue and buy you time to contact each manufacturer and apply for RMA or plead / pay for replacement licenses.
A big plus of Zero Downtime with Theft/Loss Coverage enabled is that it covers all licenses from all manufacturers on a single iLock.
I still plan to add a Vienna Protection Plan for iLok if that becomes available.
Activating TLC (Theft/Loss Coverage) on an iLok means to my understanding that all licenses on the iLok become temporary for 90 days from the last time the driver can contact the server while the iLok is connected. So if an iLok is stolen or abused it will only function for 90 days, after which the licences expire until they are re-activated by connecting to the server. This reassurance for the vendors allows Pace to issue new permanent licences to you, in addition to the short lived temporary licenses you get from ZDT (Zero Downtime) alone.
Edit: seems that I misinterpreted the technical details, see next post by
@musicman691c said:
There's nothing on the iLok site that a new dongle requires brand new ZDT/TLC. ZDT/TLC is completely optional for one's ilok. The new iLok is NOT subject to any old 90 day cycle. You may be confused in that each iLok has to have it's own ZDT (if you want it to). You don't have to have ZDT on a new/replacement iLok. An old iLok's ZDT does not carry over to a new iLok. Each iLok is a separate entity.
For Instance I have two iLoks. Each has their own ZDT setup. I don't have to have ZDT on the second iLok but I choose to be safe and have both covered. That way if I have an iLok that seems to be flaky I can move the licenses over to the other one with no problem.I've been dealing with iLoks for almost a decade now and know what's what
I prefer a dongle over a single activation on a computer, as it allows me to quickly move all my licenses to a different computer, there and back again, as many times as I please (of course the same is true for a cloud license).
If a manufacturer offers more than a single activation and uses either iLok or eLicenser I always put at least one on a dongle.
In my experience internet access is more likely to fail than computers, which in turn are more likely to fail than dongles. This is even more pronounced in live situations. If a computer becomes irresponsible then it can be difficult to quickly get replacement for computer activated licenses.
Both computers and dongles can be stolen, but dongles are much more likely to become lost. Theft/Loss Coverage and Vienna Protection Plan took the scare out of stolen or defect dongles or computers from me.
However, it would be nice if I needed only a single dongle used by all manufacturers.
(I'd love if Steinberg and Arturia would offer to use iLok as an alternative.)
Especially for Vienna products it would also be very helpful if individual licences of a single dongle could be used by different computers on the LAN using some sort of license server. This way there is no need to distribute the licenses between multiple dongles when using different computers for various instruments. It would also make ZDT coverage cheaper.
PS:
I hope we get iLok licensing before my Vienna Protection Plan for the eLicenser expires.
PS2:
I just got a new USB-C Gen-3 iLok, bought ZDT coverage for it and in the iLok License Manager simply selected all licences of the connected Gen-2 iLok and dragged them on the new one - the transfer of 28 activations completed in half a minute.
