Link to Autodesk article
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?linkID=9240657&id=15224763&siteID=123112

Checking the FLEXlm debug log file we have found that the duplicate entries are created by the MAPTEK vendor.

6:15:30 (MAPTEK) IN: “GTCH_1″ user1@nml11d7w1s
6:15:32 (MAPTEK) IN: “GTCH_1″ user1@nml11d7w1s
6:15:35 (MAPTEK) OUT: “GTCH_1″ user1@nml11d7w1s
6:15:37 (MAPTEK) IN: “GTCH_1″ user1@nml11d7w1s
6:15:39 (MAPTEK) OUT: “GTCH_1″ user1@nml11d7w1s
6:16:40 (MAPTEK) OUT: “GTCH_1″ user1@nml11d7w1s
8:03:04 (MAPTEK) IN: “GTCH_1″ user1@nml11d7w1s
8:17:28 (MAPTEK) IN: “GTCH_1″ user1@nml11d7w1s

The user only started one session of the software but at the last four entries we clearly see that the MAPTEK vendor daemon reported two overlapping sessions.

This information is included in OpenLM reports only when OpenLM Broker software is installed on the FLEXlm license server. OpenLM Broker software is designed to read the license manager debug log files and to push the information to OpenLM Server.

OpenLM Team is planning to include a solution to duplicate usage records in the near future. ]]> http://blog.openlm.com/?feed=rss2&p=90 http://blog.openlm.com/?p=80 http://blog.openlm.com/?p=80#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:50:46 +0000 oren http://blog.openlm.com/?p=80 The release of ESRI ArcGIS software version 10 also includes an upgrade of the FLEXlm license manager to release 11.6.1. This upgrade enables the support for the long awaited FLEXlm borrowing functionality that allows user to convert a floating (concurrent) license to a node locked license for a predefined period of time.

The borrowing functionality is both an opportunity and a threat to the efficiency of license usage. Users can now take their tools to the field, gather the required information and edit it on-site. By that they can highly improve their efficiency.
On the other hand users may borrow licenses to network workstations, borrow licenses for no reason and other action that can highly reduce the usage efficiency of licenses. The tools provided by OpenLM for ESRI ArcGIS accompanied by a reasonable policy set by the management can help you avoid the risks of the FLEXlm license borrowing functionality.

This article describes the required steps to enable borrowing and how to use the borrowing functionality.

Enabling Borrowing (Done by Administrator)

Your settings are stored in Registry a registry branch on your license server:

HKLM\Software\ESRI\ArcGIS License Manager 10.0

The following keys can be found:
BORROW_ENABLED
MAX_BORROW_TIME

When you click “Apply”, license is re-read (Equal to the lmutil lmreread command. The benefit of this command is that system administrators can make changes without stopping the FLEXlm service).

Using Borrowing (Done by the borrowing user)

At the workstation, borrowing action is done by using the “ArcGis Administrator” tool. The workstation has to be connected to the network while borrowing.

Start the ArcGIS Administrator by using:
Start –> ArcGIS –> ArcGis Administrator

Select the Borrow/Return tab.

The user needs to check the feature he wants to borrow

After borrow is confirmed, the borrowed feature will not be available to other users and the system will show the return date:

At the ESRI Audit.log (which location was defined at first step) you can find borrow details:

Using the lmutil lmstat command FLEXlm shows this output:

Users of Viewer:  (Total of 1 license issued;  Total of 1 license in use)

“Viewer” v10.0, vendor: ARCGIS
floating license

ACTIVATED LICENSE(S) olm-arcgis10 ACTIVATION (v10.0) (192.168.1.248/27000 102), start Thu 8/12 15:15

In OpenLM Version 1.6 active products TAB:

With ESRI ARCGIS vendor daemon FLEXlm does not show the borrowing user, it writes the word “Activated License(s)”. Other software products that use FLEXlm report the user that actually borrowed the Feature.

Releasing the license back to the license pool

Releasing the license is easy. Make sure the machine is connected to the network, open ArcGIS Administrator and release the license. The license can be released even before the the target date.

If the borrowed FEATURE is not returned to the license pool by the user the borrowing will expire automatically on the due date and will be available to all network users.

Summary

ArcGIS Desktop version 10 features the long awaited feature of license borrowing. This functionality allows users to borrow licenses to their workstation and by that to convert a floating license to a node-locked license for a limited period of time. This functionality allows users to take their ArcGIS Desktop software to the field (ArcInfo, ArcEditor, ArcView). OpenLM for ESRI ArcGIS fully supports the borrowing functionality. ]]> http://blog.openlm.com/?feed=rss2&p=80 http://blog.openlm.com/?p=77 http://blog.openlm.com/?p=77#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:35:33 +0000 oren http://blog.openlm.com/?p=77 FLEXlm software is a license management solution that allows software vendors to limit the number of software seats available to their users. FLEXlm supports different licensing polices such as Floating (or Concurrent) and Node-Locked licenses.

These type of software systems are also called DRM Solutions (Digital Rights Management). Other software with the same functionality are SafeNet HASP, SafeNet RMS and IBM LUM.

FLEXlm is used by many software vendors. For example: ESRI, Autodesk, Mathworks, PTC, Ansys and more.

FLEXlm was originally a joint development by GLOBEtrotter Software and Highland Software in 1988. GLOBEtrotter was then acquired by Macrovision in 2000. And on 2008 it was sold to Acresso Software. The company name was changed and it is now called Flexera FlexNet Publisher. ]]> http://blog.openlm.com/?feed=rss2&p=77 http://blog.openlm.com/?p=73 http://blog.openlm.com/?p=73#comments Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:24:37 +0000 oren http://blog.openlm.com/?p=73 The implementation of the usage billing policy in many organizations has proved to be a very profitable step. This article discusses the concept of FLEXlm billing and the usage of OpenLM Software in order to implement such a policy.

Many organizations use software systems that are licensed by Floating (concurrent) licenses. This type of license facilitates the organization to install an unlimited number of seats of the software. The number of licenses used concurrently are limited to a predefined number (i.e. set during the purchase). Many of the software systems licensed this way, use Flexera FLEXnet Publisher (commonly known as FLEXlm software). This type of licensing method is commonly used by software vendors that produce high-end software systems.

In many cases, such projects are initiated as a part of a License Server Consolidation project. In order to explain the project, let us use an imaginary company “Green Energy Ltd.” from the USA that has 3 subsidiaries worldwide: UK, Australia, and Japan. Each subsidiary manages several license servers with different software systems. Let us assume the following software inventory:

Software	USA	UK	Australia	Japan
ESRI ArcGIS	55	34	46	21
Autodesk Autocad	56	26	15	21
PTC	24	24	12	31
Solidworks	35	11	36	41

The usage diagrams produced from OpenLM EasyAdmin show that utilization of some of the licenses is high, while other licenses are practically not in use, depending on the time and location.

This chart demonstrates usage of ESRI ArcGIS licenses in USA alone:

The first step the company took was to consolidate all the licenses so that a single license server will serve all users worldwide. This table shows the license availability worldwide after the consolidation:

Software	Total Licenses
ESRI ArcGIS	156
Autodesk Autocad	118
PTC	91
Solidworks	123

After the consolidation, the company checked the usage level of their licenses and found that the utilization is more balanced. But, some software systems are heavily used while others have a very low usage rate.

Thus, the licenses were better utilized when the company adopting the following two steps:

• Utilizing the consolidated license server now allows users to use the same licenses over the 24-hour period.
• The creation of a bigger pool of licenses provides a higher license availability.

Based on the usage reports, the company decided to purchase more licenses for some of the software systems, while cutting down the maintenance fee for other licenses that are under utilized.

The managers of some of the subsidiaries have complained that they pay for licenses they don’t use; the reason for which is that the maintenance costs are evenly distributed between the subsidiaries. In order to solve the problem, the company decided to implement a billing policy based on the actual usage of licenses by each subsidiary. The “Groups and Projects” extension to OpenLM System provides this solution. The company has created a Group for each subsidiary using the OpenLM Users Management software.

In order to avoid the need to manually relate users to the Groups, the system manager decided to utilize OpenLM’s ability to synchronize Active Directory users and groups with OpenLM Server database. Since the organizational belonging of each user is based on the structure of the organizational tree in AD, the manager chose the OU’s option and set the system to constantly synchronize the information with AD. This way, each new user will automatically be related to the correct subsidiary. OpenLM automatically updates the user’s belonging to a subsidiary, according to any change in the position.

Thus, the information now looks the same both in AD and in OpenLM Users Management interface.

After a month, the team was able to produce a usage report according to the different groups, thus easily producing a fair billing report for each group.

The UK subsidiary has decided to further enhance the accuracy of their project’s pricing. By implementing a project usage policy, they have measured their license usage of each project. They have created all their projects using OpenLM Users Management application, and have assigned each user to one or more projects. Users that were assigned to only one project did not have to report the active project. Users that belonged to more than one project, report the active project using the capabilities of OpenLM Agent software.

The information collected this way allowed Green Energy UK to price their projects better, taking the cost of expensive software usage into account.

This example provided an insight to the basics of Floating License Billing that can be implemented by OpenLM system. We can see that the capabilities of OpenLM actually enabled the server consolidation project, and also provided all the information needed for billing.

The highlights of OpenLM functionalities demonstrated in this article are:

• OpenLM’s ability to monitor the usage level of the organizational resources.
• OpenLM’s ability to synchronize OpenLM information with Active Directory in order to avoid manual work and to ensure data accuracy.
• OpenLM’s ability to easily provide usage information for different groups of users.
• OpenLM’s ability to track the usage of licenses for specific projects.

Conclusion

OpenLM Software provides all the needed tools for the implementation of a usage billing system in organization using license managers like FLEXlm (FLEXnet). IT Managers are now able to easily implement a usage billing system that can lower operational cost while improving license availability and reducing administration costs.

We have to emphasize that this is not a real world example. In reality, there are many other problems that were not taken into consideration here, for example, network limitations and many other factors.

http://www.youtube.com/user/OpenLMUniversity

Use the export button to create a CSV file that contains the license list:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QCSWe5jcGM

Instruction on how to make sure that the correct release is installed can be found here.