Understanding a Civil 3D and Infrastructure Suite mixed license environment

Issue:

You have a mixture of Civil 3D network licenses and Infrastructure Suite Premium or Ultimate network licenses and you are wondering which license AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 will pull first.

Solution:

It does not matter if AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 was installed as part of one of the Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suites or as a point product (not as part of the suite). When you have a mixed license environment, AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 will always look to pull a Civil 3D license first. If no Civil 3D licenses are available, it will then look to pull an Infrastructure Design Suite Premium or Ultimate license.

The following diagram shows this sequencing:

In the event that you first pull a Civil 3D network license and later, while that license is still in use, you pull one of the Infrastructure Design Suite licenses by launching a different product in that suite, the Civil 3D license will be returned and you will only consume the one suite license. The same thing applies if you first pull a suite license and then launch AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012.

Note: To allow this expected behavior, you must first apply the Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite Network License Hotfix to the machine running AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012.