Tag Archives: license usage statistics

Precedence for determining the Autodesk license server

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General

The Autodesk network installation has several methods to determine the Autodesk License Manager. These are the

  • ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE environment variable
  • ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE registry key
  • LM_LICENSE_FILE variable
  • licpath.lic file and
  • License Finder dialog box configuration.

This document notes these methods, and clarifies their respective precedence:

1. ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE environment variable

When running an Autodesk software product that uses the FLEXlm based version of the Autodesk License Manager (AdLM), it first reads the environment variable ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE to determine where to look for its network license.

2. ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE registry key

If the servers specified by ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE are not available, or are out of concurrent licenses, the client reads a registry key to determine where to look next.

According to this article, the registry key is:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\FLEXlm License Manager\ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE

From our experience, the registry key is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\FLEXlm License Manager\ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE

3. LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable

Similar to the ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE environment variable, the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable also points to a specific FlexLM license server. This variable It is common to all Flex enabled applications, so it is not recommended for use on a multi vendor environment.

4. licpath.lic file

The network installation creates a licpath.lic file. It is created on the client workstation for a client installation, and created in the run-tree folder on the server for a network heavy installation. The licpath.lic file must contain the following lines:
SERVER <Server name> <MAC address>
USE_SERVER

5. License Finder dialog box

If upon application bring-up all the above methods have failed to determine the location of the Autodesk license manager, The “FLEXlm License Finder” dialog box appears and states that:

“Your application was not able to obtain a license because the FLEXnet license server manager could not determine where to find the licensing data it needs”

Autodesk requires the user to either “Specify the License Server System” or “Specify the License File”. Select “Specify the License Server System” and click Next. The UI will prompt you to type in the Autodesk license manager location.

Notes

1. The dialog box configuration changes the ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE registry key, so it will take precedence over licpath.lic and LM_LICENSE_FILE. In order to return to those methods the ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE key would have to be deleted from the registry.

2. OpenLM interfaces the Autodesk FlexLM based license manager to provide real-time application usage metering and license usage statistics. It automatically optimizes license utilization for the benefit of users and license administrators alike.

OpenLM: Concurrent license monitoring and optimization tool

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What is OpenLM ?

OpenLM is a comprehensive license-management solution, designed to monitor and optimize the usage of concurrent (‘floating’) license software. OpenLM is capable of monitoring a wide variety of license managers, e.g.: FlexNet (FlexLM), Sentinel RMS, Sentinel HASP, Reprise RLM, DSLS, IBM-LUM and LM-X. MathLM and BetaLM support has also been implemented, and would be released soon.

Who was OpenLM Designed For?

Unlike other license management systems that only offer administration and license monitoring statistics, OpenLM also optimizes license usage in a unique manner that provides all personnel with useful license-related functions.

Organization managers:

  • Know what you have: License inventory.
  • Plan license maintenance and procurement of expensive licenses.
  • Charge projects or business units for software usage time.
  • Cut costs by dropping maintenance for licenses that are no longer in use.

Administrator view:

  • Real time usage management and troubleshooting.
  • Extract license usage statistics information and patterns.
  • Roles and Permissions: Grant licenses according to specific Users’ permissions.

End User View:

  • End users are not kept in the dark. They are informed about the status of denied licenses, and receive a License availability notification when a license becomes vacant.
  • Who is using the license I need, and what are this person’s contact details?

Supported features

License managers:

  • OpenLM interfaces a wide variety of license managers, e.g.: FlexLM / Flexnet publisher, IBM LUM, Sentinel RMS, Sentinel HASP, RLM, DSLS and other leading license managers.
  • Concurrent monitoring of multiple license servers on multiple time zones.
  • Management of Floating, Node-locked and Borrowed licenses.

Monitoring capabilities:

  • Easily review license inventory in real time.
  • Extract license activity reports (e.g. Flexnet report), with configurable resolution.
  • Receive Billing reports for any time period, per user or software (FLEXbill capabilities).

Infrastructure

  • Operational over WAN and LAN networks.
  • Interface license managers that run on UNIX, Linux, or Windows’ Operating systems.
  • Web-based user interface, applicable on any major browser.
  • Mobile interface application enhances monitoring abilities for system administrators.
  • OpenLM supports both external and embedded databases.

What does “Open” in “OpenLM” stand for?

OpenLM provides a set of open and documented APIs that enable customers and business partners to develop applications that integrate OpenLM software capabilities.

OpenLM Screenshots

Watch the OpenLM EasyAdmin screenshots on the OpenLM site.

Want to evaluate the software ?

You can get the most updated version of OpenLM from our OpenLM downloads area. After filling in your name and email – you’d be directed to the downloads’ section. The Installation process is easy and straightforward, but if you still need any assistance – please send an email to support@openlm.com, and we’ll be glad to help.

OpenLM Version 1.7 Screenshots

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EasyAdmin

The EasyAdmin user interface is accessible from any standard internet browser, e.g.:
Mozilla FireFox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Apple Safari & Google Chrome.

EasyAdmin Control Panel

The control panel allows users to get system status information in a single glance:

  • License server status.
  • OpenLM Broker status on each license server.
  • General statistics on license on daily and weekly license usage.
  • One-glance status of critical feature over multiple license servers.
  • Alerts system messages.

The control panel features a Windows-like interface that allows easy access and management of Windows on a standard browser interface.

OpenLM EasyAdmin – Licenses window

Start → Management → Licenses

The licenses window lists available licenses, and facilitates management of the organizational assets. A sophisticated sliding filter enables users to filter long lists easily.

OpenLM EasyAdmin supports advanced features like FLEXlm packages (As used by Autodesk that produce Autocad).
License Packages appear as boxed items.

Licenses with an upcoming expiration date are marked with a different color.

OpenLM EasyAdmin – License Servers window

Start → Management → License Servers

OpenLM version 1.7 supports Flexera FLEXlm/FLEXnet, IBM LUM, Sentinel SafeNet HASP, Sentinel SafeNet RMS, Reprise RLM, and DSLS license managers.

The license servers window gives an overview of the monitored license servers:

 

  • ‘LED’ indications show stable (green) or faulty (red) connection between the OpenLM Server and the license server (round) or OpenLM Broker component (rectangle).

  • Basic information regarding the current license usage and license borrowing status for each license manager

  • Start / Stop and Reread action buttons for each license manager.

 

OpenLM EasyAdmin – Active Products Window

Start → Management →  Active Products

The Active Products window lists all currently active sessions by user name, workstation, product & Feature name, start time, etc.

License managers may sometimes label licenses as occupied, when in fact they are idle and wasting expensive resources. The Active products window serves as an interface for authorized system managers to trace idle sessions, and retrieve licenses from any user when necessary.

For more information on Manual and Automatic idle license harvesting, please refer to these Application notes:

Application Note 1020: Manually Removing Licenses Using the EasyAdmin web application
Application Note 1005: Configuring OpenLM to close idle Licenses

OpenLM EasyAdmin Workstations window

Start → Users & Permissions →  Workstations

The Workstations window provides all the information a system administrator needs in order to manage workstations that are accessing licenses.
This information includes:

  • Hostname
  • IP Address
  • Last logged in user
  • Agent version (if applicable)
  • Online (Workstation is online or offline)
  • Idle time (User idle time)
  • Controlled (for supported systems)

OpenLM EasyAdmin – License Activity

Start → Reports → License Activity


The License Activity window is a very powerful tool that enables system administrators and managers to produce sophisticated reports, and track license activity of individual users. It lists all finished session according to User names, Groups name, Host name, IP, Project name, Feature name , usage time, etc.

OpenLM EasyAdmin – Released Licenses window

Start → Reports → Released Licenses

OpenLM is able to save and close idle sessions of certain applications we refer to as extension – supported applications (ESRI Desktop ArcGIS, Autodesk products and Matlab) The Released Licenses window reports all such license release (checked in) instances.

OpenLM EasyAdmin - Denials window

Start → Reports → Denials

OpenLM accumulates reports of license request denials.
It thus provides comprehensive exact information, which is required for establishing a correct license purchasing policy.

OpenLM EasyAdmin – License Usage

Start → Reports → License Usage

The license usage report is an account of peak feature usage per time resolution (minutes / hours / days / weeks). It allows system administrators to compare the actual license usage to the number of available licenses. A smart Filter enables users to build customized lists of licenses and get the accumulated usage on these licenses.

OpenLM EasyAdmin – Groups and Projects Usage

OpenLM enables organization to organize users according to groups and projects, and obtain the total usage time these groups very easily.
This could be done either manually, or by synchronizing the OpenLM database with the organization’s Active directory.
This functionality is often applied in order to implement a license usage charge-back billing policy.

Project Report

Start → Users & Permissions →  Projects Usage

Project reporting enables project-oriented companies to get license usage time according to the active project, as reported by the end user.

Group Report

Start → Users & Permissions →  Group Usage

Group reporting allows managers and system administrators to obtain license usage data according to groups.

 

General Statistics window

Start → Management → General Statistics

 

The general statistics screen gives usage information across the whole organization. This is a general parameter providing statistics over all license servers and licenses. It can only be used as a general measure of efficiency. Monitoring this value from day to day can help system administrators to recognize trends or problems.

Recent hour statistics:

  • The number of unique users of software licenses monitored by OpenLM over the previous (ended) hour.

  • The efficiency figure gives the total usage time in hours as a portion of the total potential work hours of software licenses that have been purchased by the organization.

Daily Statistics:

The daily statistics “Total Users” and “Efficiency” figures are an average of the hourly statistics within the current workday.

 

EasyAdmin Settings

Start → User Settings

The configured preferences in the “User settings” window effect the format of information as it is presented to the User.

Start → Administration

The configuration screens allow users to set their preferences.

Start → Administration → Working Hours

Working hours’ selection effects the statistical information which is calculated and presented to all system users.

 

Products / Packages window

Start → Administration → Products / Packages

The “Products/Packages” window enables users to define a meaningful product name to be displayed alongside a feature name.

It also facilitates the organization of licensed features in packages.

For more information on these capabilities, please refer to

Application Note 1022: Products and Packaged licenses in OpenLM

 

OpenLM Agent

The end user tool of OpenLM system improves license availability, empowers the user and provides advanced functionality.

OpenLM Agent functionality:

  1. Query  license manager status (and check who is using the license).
  2. Open documents that were closed by OpenLM (only supported for dedicated system like ESRI Desktop ArcGIS).
  3. Allows the user to set the active project (when projects are active).
  4. Gets the LM_PROJECT environment value and sends it to OpenLM Server.
  5. Provides license availability notifications.

OpenLM Agent is shown as an icon on the Windows system tray:

 The blue and white icon indicates connectivity to OpenLM Server.

 The grey icon indicates no connectivity to OpenLM Server.

 

OpenLM Agent - License Usage Information

The License Usage Information window is available to the end user.
The ability to query license availability from the end user workstation is a very important step towards improving license usability.
The license usage window displays the total number of used, borrowed, and available licenses.
Click on a row to get the complete list of active users who are currently drawing on that license.

 

OpenLM Agent – License usage information: “Who has my license ?”

This is what every FLEXlm user wants to know at any specific point in time. Now you can find that information quickly with a single click.

Whoever needs the use of that license at a particular time can now call the user who is occupying the license and request that it be released.

This feature on its own has proved to save a considerable amount of time for users and administrators, by facilitating faster access to licenses.

 

OpenLM Agent allows users to see who is currently running the floating license on their station, an important and useful feature for any system that incorporates floating licenses such as:

Autocad, Matlab, ESRI, AVEVA, Cadence, IntelliCAD, MathCAD, Pro-Engineer, Solidworks, and Synopsys.

It is also a powerful tool for systems with extensions, especially when there is a limited number of extensions to go around, and users tend to use them mostly for a short time span.

A click on the any of the users displays the users details as stored in OpenLM Users table.
These tables can be synchronized with an organization’s LDAP database: e.g.: Microsoft Active Directory.

OpenLM Agent – License available notification

When a user is denied a specific license, the OpenLM Server sends a notification to the user once the specific license becomes available again: 

OpenLM Agent – Project selection

OpenLM System also enables end users to choose the active projects:

OpenLM Agent Configuration Form

The OpenLM Agent Configuration form sets and tests the connection to an OpenLM server.
Note – this is the OpenLM server, NOT a license (e.g.: Flexera FLEXnet) server.

The Agent’s logging level may also be set here.
A “Silent Install” option is available for automatic distribution of the OpenLM Agent to all workstations in the network.

OpenLM Active Agent

The OpenLM Active agent boosts organizations’ license usage by actively retrieving idle licenses.
The Active Agent supports many different software products from various vendors, such as:

  • Autodesk software - Autocad, Revit, Electrical, Architecture, Mechanical, Map 3D, MEP, Navisworks etc.
  • ESRI -  ArcGIS  Desktop products: ArcView, ArcEditor, ArcInfo, Network Analyst, 3d Analyst, ArcGIS Data Interoperability, ArcGIS Data Reviewer, ArcGIS Spatial Analyst etc.
  • Matlab

The Extension provides additional functions, such as:

  1. Closing idle sessions when licenses are no longer in use.
  2. One-click reopening of closed projects.

When OpenLM saves and closes an idle session, it alerts the user with a notification message:

A single click on the bubble reopens the project exactly as it was before OpenLM closed it.
Also, right clicking the Active Agent icon, and selecting “Recently Closed Documents” displays all recently closed documents:

Click on one of the recently closed documents to reopen it.

OpenLM Server

The OpenLM Server is the hub component of the OpenLM Utilizer system.
It collects license usage information from various sources and stores it in a relational database.
The OpenLM Server is a Windows service that can manage and monitor multiple license servers, located in different time zones and running on different operating systems (UNIX, Linux, or Windows).

OpenLM Server Configuration Form – License Servers Tab

This tab enables system administrators to effectively configure and manage license servers via the OpenLM Server.

Version 1.7 supports the FLEXlm FLEXnet license manager and additional license servers like IBM LUM, Sentinel SafeNet HASP, Sentinel SafeNet RMS, Reprise RLM, and more.
The OpenLM server supports world-wide license server monitoring; It is important to specify the time zone of each server.
After introducing new license servers, it is recommended to click the “Check” button to verify that the OpenLM server is able to connect to the license server.

Free text display names are attached to each server for better identification.
Fail safe server (Triad configuration) may also be configured on this tab.

OpenLM Server Configuration Form – Advanced Tab

Advanced OpenLM Server settings include:

  • Option file management
  • Translate workstation names to IPs
  • Enable the OpenLM Role based permissions system
  • Logging level
  • miscellaneous.

OpenLM Server Configuration Form – Port settings Tab

The Openlm Server interfaces all other OpenLM peripheral modules via ports, which numbers are defined in this form.

 

OpenLM Server Configuration Form – Active Directory Tab

The OpenLM server can synchronize users and user groups with organizations’ LDAP Database (Microsoft Active Directory).
Group synchronization is complex; OpenLM provides multiple policies for such synchronizations.

OpenLM Server Configuration Form – Notifications Tab

The Notifications tab is extremely important!
These settings allow OpenLM to send error notifications, updates on new releases, and other important messages aimed at improving the license usage.

OpenLM Server Configuration Form – LM tools Tab

The LM tools tab holds the directories in which every license manager commands are located.

 

OpenLM Server Configuration Form – Projects Tab

The Projects tab configures miscellaneous properties OpenLM when working in projects; Logging project information, Minimal project usage time, etc.

 

OpenLM Server Configuration Form – Registration Tab

This tab serves to enter the OpenLM license key, for product registration.