• Local licenses can only be used on the computer that the license is physically attached to. This includes RDP and VMs where the end user's computer essentially acts as an access point to the machine that does the processing and holds the license. 
• Floating licenses are attached to a "License server" which distributes out the license to other computers on the same network. The license server need not run the software at all and just needs to be able to run the license utility and be on the same network as the clients (whether it is the same physical network or a VPN).