Tag Archives: Vendor Daemon

Siemens PLM license analysis and license monitoring

Posted on by

OpenLM supports license monitoring of a wide, and ever growing variety of license managers. Among those are Flexera FlexLM (Flexnet publisher), IBM LUM, DSLS, Sentinel HASP, Sentinel RMS, Reprise RLM, and LM-X.

This group of license management utilities encompass a great variety of licensed products. One group of such licensed products is the Siemens PLM (formerly UGS) 3D & 2D Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) group.

The OpenLM tool provides high level of application usage management and optimization for PLM licenses, providing clear and valuable usage information for Managers, License Administrators and End Users.

Siemens PLM Common Licensing

Siemens PLM employs the “Siemens PLM Software Common Licensing” tool in order to deliver a consistent licensing implementation to all PLM products. It is based on the Flexera FlexNet license management tool, and has incorporated some unique characteristics:

  • The PLM Common Licensing toolkit has adopted the Siemens PLM Software-wide licensing vendor daemon ugslmd. Consequently, all Siemens PLM products gain access to common licenses utilize this same daemon.
  • The PLM Common Licensing toolkit employs a unified license file for all PLM products.
  • The default port for the PLM ugslmd vendor daemon is 28000. That was decided in order to avoid conflicts with other applications, using the default FlexLM port 27000.
  • Composite ID (CID): This is a 12 digit hexadecimal unique machine identifier that is used as part of Siemens PLM Software licensing to lock a license file to a machine. The CID is distinguished from a FLEXnet hostid by the keyword “COMPOSITE=”.
  • NX bundles and Suite Packages: These are packages that Siemens PLM Software has predefined to meet the general needs of customers at a lower cost than purchasing individual floating licenses.

For more information on Siemens PLM Software Common Licensing, please refer to this PDF.

The OpenLM advantage

The OpenLM license monitoring tool incorporates many advantages in PLM software maintenance for members of all positions in an organization. In a nutshell:

  • Managers get a clear picture of their Software assets.
  • System Administrators are freed from managing licenses.
  • End users enjoy improved PLM license availability.

Additionally, OpenLM v 1.8 Automatically sorts NX suites, to clearly display Siemens PLM application usage measuring in its true context.

What is the difference between the FlexLM lmgrd and lmadmin license server managers

Posted on by

license server components

The vendor daemon and the license server manager jointly comprise the FlexLM (Flexnet) license server. The license server manager contacts a FlexEnabled application, and dispatches the handling of that application to the appropriate vendor daemon. It also serves as an interface between the Vendor daemon and the Application, for checking out licenses.

License server manager types

There are two versions of the license server manager:
• lmgrd – the original license server manager with a command-line interface.
• lmadmin – a newer web-based license server manager.

Conceptual differences

The following table summarizes the conceptual differences between the two license server manager types:

Item lmgrd lmadmin
Interface Command-line interface Web-based license server manager
Configuration Options Configuration information is acquired  from the command-line options used when the program is started No configuration options are required upon program start.
Persistence of change Changes need to be done in the license file Settings are maintained after relaunching the tool, and they override the license file.
License file import A single license file set by the configuration options upon running lmgrd Import (multiple) license files.
Number of running instances One instance of lmgrd is run for each vendor daemon. Supports multiple vendor daemons with one lmadmin process.

More changes between lmgrd & lmadmin

On top of these conceptual changes, there have been some changes in commands:

  • Some commands are no longer supported or have been replaced in lmadmin (e.g. lmremove, lmdown)
  • Some have changed in behavior (e.g. lmreread)
  • Other commands have been added into the lmadmin to integrate the functionality previously provided by the LMTOOLS (Stop server)

For more information please refer to
http://www.globes.com/support/utilities/fnp_LicAdmin_11_10.pdf

IBM Rational – FlexNet Token based licensing

Posted on by

IBM Rational license management using FLEXnet

The IBM Rational License Server uses FLEXnet (FlexLM) for licensing IBM Rational products.

FLEXnet main components

The four main components of FLEXnet are:

  • The License Manager Daemon, lmgrd

  • The Vendor Daemon, telelogic

  • The client application program, in this case any IBM Rational application

  • The license file, license.dat

Mode of employment

  • When an IBM Rational product is started, the program uses the TELELOGIC_LICENSE_FILE system variable to find out the name of the computer that’s running the FLEXnet license server and the port that it’s using.

  • The program contacts the license manager on the FLEXnet license server, using the specified port. It requests a floating license and makes the request for the Telelogic vendor daemon.

  • On the FLEXnet license server, the license manager sends the request to the Telelogic vendor daemon. The Telelogic vendor daemon checks to see if any licenses are available.

  • If there are free licenses, the Telelogic vendor daemon grants a license and the program runs. If there aren’t any licenses available, the Telelogic vendor daemon refuses the request, and the program fails to start and displays a license denial message.


Token-based licensing

Token licenses are in fact a form of floating license, only that instead of having a pool of licenses – it has a pool of tokens. When a feature is checked-out, a certain amount of tokens are consumed. The number of consumed tokens is specific to each feature, and is apparent in the feature/Increment line in the license file. When the application is closed, the tokens are returned to the pool for other end users to use.

Advantages of Token licensing

Having the ability to apply the acquired licenses to multiple products is an appealing concept:

  • Customers are not always aware of the full array of features they may acquire. having a token based license scheme ensures customer satisfaction from the license acquisition.

  • As development stages progress, customer needs change. They may require different licensed features, and eliminate the charge of “unused” software.

  • The entire license purchasing method is simplified. Customer can add/try new software during project, without new PO or evaluation process

Rational tools’ token-based licensing

IBM Rational license types

IBM Rational includes the following license types:

DOORS, Synergy, Change, Tau, System Architect, Focal Point, Rhapsody, Publishing Engine, Logiscope and Team Webtop

IBM Rational token license file examples

  • The Increment / Change line marks the number of tokens to be consumed:

INCREMENT Change telelogic 2015.04302 30-apr-2015 1 …

VENDOR_STRING=T10-999999:t,TLSTOK,1.0,Change,5  … // 5 Tokens worth.

  • This is an INCREMENT line indicating the total number of Tokens in the license

file. In this case, it is 200:

INCREMENT TLSTOK ibmratl 2.0 30-apr-2015 200 ISSUER=IBM

Rational License Server 8.1.1

Rational License Server 8.1.1 incorporates all vendor daemons (telelogic, rational, and ibmratl) into one. This change has also been incorporated into multiple Rational products such as ClearCase and ClearQuest.


References

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/rational/v0r0m0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.rational.license.doc/topics/r_lic_log_file.html


http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27023414&aid=1