Autodesk Network License Server - OS Upgrade

[neil.fernandes]

Dear All,

We have just upgraded all workstation to Autodesk 2011 version software. All workstation are configured as network based licensing to one licensing server.

We are now told that our licensing Server OS needs to be upgraded to Win 2008. For this the Server will be down for a couple of days.

What would be the best practise to follow inorder to make sure the Autodesk licenses are available to workstations even after the server has been shut down and removed. Any suggestions will help me make a decision.

We are told the upgrade will take a couple of days only.

Appreciate any advise into this issue. Thanks to all.

Best Regards,

NEIL FERNANDES

[TravisNave]

Before the old license server goes down, you should borrow the licenses for the few days that you expect the NLM to be down.  That will allow the users to keep working.  You may not have enough licenses for everybody, so make sure that those users that absolutely need to use AutoCAD have their seats reserved.  Once the new server is in place, you can let the old borrowed licenses expire (you will not be able to return them to the new NLM) and then point the clients to the new NLM server. 

Setting up a new NLM server really should take no more than 15 minutes or so, though.  You can switch during the lunch hour if necessary. 

[neil.fernandes]

Thank you TravisNave ,

Yes you are right the licenses wont be enough for all.

Once the new NLM license server is up, how do I configure all client PC to take the license from the new NLM license server? Is there a simple procedure for this.

Or do I have to configure each PC one by one?

Thank you for your suggestions

Best Regards,

NEIL

[TravisNave · Accepted solution]

Once your new NLM is up and running and the old one is taken down, when you launch the Autodesk product, it should prompt you to enter the hostname of the license server system.  Alternately, you can create a system environment variable on each client named ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE with a value of @SERVERNAME where servername is the hostname of your new NLM server.  You can also modify the LICPATH.LIC file in the root of the Autodesk application on each client machine.  All methods work quickly and easily and you shouldn't have any problems with the transition. 

Good Luck!