Local and staging installations

Local, staging, QA, and other test environments are commonly used to develop, verify, and troubleshoot software before changes are applied to a live production installation.

DotwebApps licensing may treat approved non-production environments differently from counted production installations where the applicable licensing configuration permits it.

Common non-production environments #

Examples include:

• local development — development performed on a local machine or private development environment
• staging — a separate environment used to review changes before production
• QA/testing — an environment used to test functionality, fixes, or configuration changes
• pre-production verification — a controlled environment used to confirm a release before it replaces the live installation

These environments are intended for development and testing rather than normal live production use.

How licensing may treat local and staging installations #

Approved local, staging, or test installations may be treated differently from production activations where the DotwebApps licensing configuration for the product and environment permits it.

This should not be interpreted as a guarantee that every test domain, subdomain, server, or publicly accessible installation will be excluded from the production activation count.

The purchased license and the applicable product/environment behavior always control.

Production activation limits still apply #

Production deployments must remain within the finite activation limit of the purchased license tier.

Staging or testing environments must not be used to bypass production activation limits or to operate additional live production installations beyond the rights of the purchased license.

Good practices for development and staging #

Where practical:

• keep development or staging separate from the live production installation
• use test environments only for development, QA, staging, or pre-production purposes
• follow the product-specific installation and configuration documentation
• do not expose license keys or other license credentials publicly
• remove, disable, or appropriately secure test environments when they are no longer needed

If you are unsure whether a particular environment should be treated as production or non-production for your licensed product, contact DotwebApps support with the relevant product and environment information. Do not send passwords, private keys, API secrets, or unrelated credentials.