Best licensing setup?

[alyas404]

We have two sites and at the moment have two seperate license servers even though we have a private WAN link between the two offices.
Our licensing is up for renewal in both sites and we want to re-evaluate that setup and come up with something that allows us to pool our licenses better. At the moment one of our sites barely has enough and the other has way too many. Staff numbers fluctuate so the system needs to be flexible.

Would it be best to just have one license server to handle both sites?
- what kind of issues could this cause? the link is fast and has never had any down time, will there be any kind of delay across a dedicated 10mbit WAN link or is it very quick/not network intensive enough to pickup a license quickly?

what about a distributed setup?
- From what I am reading there is no difference between two seperate servers and having a distributed setup where the servers know about each other.... what are the benefits of this setup over what we have now?

Or a redundant setup?
- how reliable is this setup? If i had a backup server and a master server in one site and a backup server in the other site what will happen if the link between the two goes down(this scenario being more likely than a server crash)? will I still be able to have everyone keep working in each site until we restore the link?

I'm sure the question has been asked before, most likely somewhere in this forum (although I cant really find too much discussion on the topic anywhere....) but would still appreciate if my individual questions were answered instead of being pointed to a previous post (unless it is truely the perfect answer of course).
As many opinions on this topic as possible would be greatly appreciated.
I would appreciate replys quickly as I am on a deadline to get this sorted before we renew licenses.

Thank you in advance!

PS. Also as we are only using Revit/AutoCAD 2009 currently I also need to understand the whole 'current and 3 versions back under one license' deal. If I wish to continue using 2009 Revit for current projects am I going to be able to install the latest version of the license server and will we be able to have both Revit 2011 and Revit 2009 running on the same license file?

PSS. I just read this and am now more convinced that a single license server and file is the best way to go, comments? http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=771650&tstart=15

PSSS. in the distant future we may have more sites than just two so the solution I choose needs to be expandable to more sites Edited by: alyas404 on May 3, 2010 6:26 AM

[TravisNave]

Agreed. The single license server is probably the best option for you. It's the easiest to manage and upgrade at any given time. It's also the easiest to replace if a catastrophic failure happens. I run a single license server that supplies licenses to 19 offices over the WAN, so this should ease your mind on connectivity and expandability concerns.
The license manager can be set up with an adskflex.opt options file if you want to make specific reservations of licenses to each of your offices, should you discover the need to do so. Breaking up your licenses this way does essentially the same as a distributed server without the need of running more than one server. Plus it is easier to make immediate changes when necessary, whereas a distributed setup would need all new licenses regenerated. As for the redundant model, steer clear. As you read in my other response linked above, it is not worth the effort.
When it comes to your licensing question about running Revit 2011 and Revit 2009, it really depends on whether or not your license is under Subscription. If it is, then your 2011 license file will have the ability built-in to provide your total number of seats in any version of Revit from 2008-2011.
If you have any further questions, let me know.

[alyas404]

Thanks for your quick and accurate answer. Perfect.
Then in this case I will be pushing for the single server setup, there wont be a need to reserve licenses for specific sites as we have enough.
However now the final hurdle which again I'm sure has been answered here but is there an easy way to point all the clients to the new server or is it much quicker, easier and foolproof to just create the new deployments and spend a weekend reinstalling on every computer?

[TravisNave]

No need to reinstall. Simply create a system environment variable on each client called ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE with the value of @SERVERNAME where servername is obviously the hostname of you new server. That should be enough to take care of it. Also, once you take down the old NLM, when you launch an Autodesk product it should prompt you to enter the name of the license server system. Either way, you will be set.

[alyas404]

This is great stuff but could you elabohorate more or point me to a forum where someone has explained this better. I'm an I.T guy that is not a Revit user, that has only been working in the architecture industry just over a year so this is the first time we have needed to make changes to the Autodesk setup at all.
I have Revit installed on my machine via a network license on serverA I just added an environment variable like you described pointing to a server that doesn't exist but it still picked up the license from serverA.

I mean worst case scenario if this doesn't work and I have created the deployments correctly then I start the work on Saturday morning using the methods you have described, if they don't work i can just fallback on the long method of reinstalling on every PC which should only take a day.

My only problem remaining will be that we now have projects being created in 2011 (trial version) then 99% of the rest of them in 2009 but one version left in 2008..... with a new license file I will opnly be covered for 2009-2011. is that how it works, a license file supports current version and 2 back so I will only have 2011, 2010 and 2009 or can I request which three versions I want so I can use 08,09 and 2011?

Sorry for making this thread longer and longer but your replies are solid gold

[Anonymous]

Hi,

it will pick the old license server because you don't have a new one
installed. The servers used can be found in registry or in licpath.lic file.

I think you can use 3 versions back so 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 work with the
same networklicense if you are on subscription.

J.


"alyas404" wrote in message news:6385085@discussion.autodesk.com...
> This is great stuff but could you elabohorate more or point me to a forum
> where someone has explained this better. I'm an I.T guy that is not a
> Revit user, that has only been working in the architecture industry just
> over a year so this is the first time we have needed to make changes to
> the Autodesk setup at all.
> I have Revit installed on my machine via a network license on serverA I
> just added an environment variable like you described pointing to a server
> that doesn't exist but it still picked up the license from serverA.
>
> I mean worst case scenario if this doesn't work and I have created the
> deployments correctly then I start the work on Saturday morning using the
> methods you have described, if they don't work i can just fallback on the
> long method of reinstalling on every PC which should only take a day.
>
> My only problem remaining will be that we now have projects being created
> in 2011 (trial version) then 99% of the rest of them in 2009 but one
> version left in 2008..... with a new license file I will opnly be covered
> for 2009-2011. is that how it works, a license file supports current
> version and 2 back so I will only have 2011, 2010 and 2009 or can I
> request which three versions I want so I can use 08,09 and 2011?
>
> Sorry for making this thread longer and longer but your replies are solid
> gold

[alyas404]

Thanks heaps to both of you. Answers were perfect and I've been able to confirm everything you've said from other sources and testing first hand.
As we have 2 seperate servers I was able to use the environment variable you described on one of the PCs here to connect to the server at the other site so I'm now REALLY happy and confident that when we put the new server in place that we will be able to simply point all the clients to the new license server.
Also confirmed can use current version and 3 back which is an absolute life saver!

Thanks heaps, if this was a helpdesk then call closed and 5* to the operators!

[TravisNave]

Ha! Glad you are up and running. And if this were helpdesk, we probably wouldn't be fellow users here in the United States. 😄 But you can still press #1 for English if it makes you feel better.