Answer

The Tableau Server license allows up to three (3) activations of the same key: one production environment and two non-production environments, as defined in the End User License Agreement. The same product key can be used to activate the software in each environment.

The number of cores used in your test server environments does not affect the number of cores allowed in your production environment. In each environment you can use up to the number of cores allowed by your Tableau Server license.In the case of a user based license, the total number of authorized users across both production and test environments may not exceed the total number of users allowed by your Tableau Server license.  The user capacity specifies the maximum count of uniquely identified individuals who can use the Tableau Server for any purpose across all environments.

Additional Information

Examples of non-compliant and compliant Tableau Server license use cases:

This first setup described below is EULA compliant because the exact same "uniquely identified individuals" exist on both machines:

• Tableau Server has a 10 user Tableau Server license with 10 production Tableau Server users in place.
• A new Tableau Server test environment is setup and the Tableau content is restored from a production tabadmin or tsm backup file.
• All 10 users are identical to those on the production Tableau Server because you restored the production backup file to test.

This next setup described below is NOT EULA compliant because there are more than 10 "uniquely identified individuals" between the two Tableau Server environments. With a 10 user license if you have more than 10 "uniquely identified individuals" across ALL servers this violates the EULA:

• Tableau Server has a 10 user Tableau Server license with 10 production Tableau Server users in place.
• A Tableau Server test environment is setup. One or more of the 10 users added to the Tableau Server test environment are different "uniquely identified individuals" from those that exist in production.