Although the ANSYS 2021R1 Help text indicates it is no longer necessary to have an ANSYS License Interconnect (ALI). Running on your ANSYS License Server machines. Opening ANSYS Workbench 2021R1 will still trigger an attempt to connect to an ALI. This is to attempt to obtain a list of cached licenses which can then be used, to populate the main Workbench toolbox. If the attempt to connect to an ALI fails license increment existence checks are then carried out using direct calls to the lmgrd/ansyslmd components of ANSYS licensing which on a slow network connection can result in a long startup time for Workbench.