Upgrade to NOWS SBE from Novell SBS 6.6 - part 1

We bought an upgrade from Novell Small Business Suite 6.6 (NW6.5 + GW7 + 20 users) to NOWS SBE (OES11 + GW2012 + 15users, 15 users are currently enough).
The technical documentation I found that because of the incompatibility of different versions of OES and GW will need to upgrade procedure:
1. in-place upgrade to NW6.5 + GW8
2. migrate to OES11 + GW8
3. in-place upgrade to OES11 + GW2012

The upgrade procedure is bound queries on activation and license.
Will be server operational after step 1 if we have not a license to GW8?
Will be server operational after step 2 if we have not a license to GW8?
I ask because I do not know how long the migration will take
whether it will be necessary to use the server after step 1 or 2
And I'm not at all clear dependence server functionality on licenses,
activation, unlock, activation the credential or other,,, during the upgrade and migration.
I did not understand how many different license files, activation, unlock or something further, it is necessary for the correct running NOWS SBE(OES11+GW2012) with 15 users (or NW6.5+GW8 or OES11+ GW8)?

I´m not found any document that would explain this.
Thank you in advance for any help, where the search for such information