Bob,
Would you recommend consolidating two dongles into one? What happens when the server PC where 2 consolidated dongles reside malfunctions and must taken out of operation for a while? Can I just take out the dongle and stick it to other stations with a little reconfiguration in control panel and then resume work without the server?
YES. It's a regular dongle and can be inserted into another computer. You won't be able to insert it into a client computer though because it's just that, a client, and it is running the 3Shape software off the server. You could, however, install a standalone installation on any computer and plug your dongle into that computer and use that one as normal.
I was told its a bad idea to have more than one server in the same network. so I assume when consolidating the dongle, both dongles reside in one machine, am I correct on this? If so, it raises the risk when the server ever fails, right?
That's my main concern regarding consolidating the dongle but would love to hear from you.
Consolidating the dongle means merging the licenses from multiple dongles into one physical dongle. Yes, more than one server/standalone is not ideal because the data won't be shared and there are problems if you do try to share data between two servers. One dongle, one server, multiple clients (whether they are scanning or designing, it doesn't matter) is the best wat o get set up.
When you two 3shape dongles (2 scanner with scanning stations + 2 design stations),what would be your ideal setup?
Like I said, one dongle, one server, every other computer is a client.
Your thoughts are appreciated.