It needs to be done once per SID, if your metadata server has a different SID than your compute, you'll need to run it twice.
Not new, it's been in place since at least 9.2, but depending on the combination of software you have it might not have been neccesarry until now.
http://support.sas.com/documentation/installcenter/en/ikunixplannedri/66610/PDF/default/setinit_planned.pdf Covers the process, including
"After you apply renewal SID files on all hosts in your environment, restart all SAS Servers and SAS Spawners in your environment in the appropriate order, beginning with the SAS Metadata server if it is used. The new expiration dates and licenses for any newly added products will take effect."
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