We have used TurboActivate 3 for a long time, and are in the process of upgrading to TurboActivate 4. Right now we're testing the new verified trial system in TA4, which has been very helpful as it not only closes our biggest licensing loophole (unverified trial + VM reset) but also gives us more insight into trial activity.
However, we've not had good luck with verified trials on Amazon EC2. Every attempt to start a verified trial, even in a brand new instance, results in TA_E_TRIAL_EXPIRED.
We realize that verified trials are supposed to transcend virtualization, and that there is therefore no guarantee that a verified trial will start on EC2 (depending on e.g. whether a trial has already been completed on whatever hardware the EC2 instance started on), but need some guidance on what to expect.
Are verified trials supported on EC2? If so, are there any practices (either on the TA side or the EC2 side) which will make the success of the trial more predictable?
Well, VMs are special beasts. They can either be cloned (false positives) or modified so that their fingerprint is different (false negatives).
The best advice. Don't allow trials on VMs (EC2 runs with VMs -- Xen, to be specific).
Other than that, TurboActivate is doing its job correctly. Namely, identifying a computer that had previously used a verified trial (whether the data is on the computer or not, doesn't matter -- TA uses the fingerprint of the computer).
