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Track and limit license usage

17 REPLIES 17
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Message 1 of 18
Carl_mgfx
1627 Views, 17 Replies

Track and limit license usage

Hi all

 

I have been doing a lot of reading when it comes to Vault and licensing, but I have not found a solution to my problem.

 

The situation is as follows:

 

We have 18 designers and 25 Vault Pro licenses, this leaves 7 "floating" licenses for use around the plant.

 

The problem comes in when more than 7 users around the plant pull vault licenses, leaving designers without licenses and resulting in the loss of work in the design office.

 

Is there a way to track the use of the Vault licenses?  I know the Vault log can be viewed but this takes too long to pin point who has licenses at any given time.  Is there a program similar to Sam report, JTB FlexReport or OpenLM that can track the Vault license usage, or read from the Vaults log file and give an easy to understand output?

 

Is there a way to reserve Vault licenses for a set group of users?  I already know that the NLM options file doesn't work, but is there something similar for Vault licensing?  Or should Vault be setup in a different way to accomodate for this?

 

Any input will be greatly appreciated!


Kind Regards
Carl van Rooyen
Application Engineer

Inventor 2019, Vault 2019,
HP ZBook 15u G4, Win 10 64Bit (ver 1709), i7-7500U, 16 GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 620 with AMD Firepro W4190M
17 REPLIES 17
Message 2 of 18
john.laidler
in reply to: Carl_mgfx

Not a licensing response, but a recommendation.  If the 'plant' users need read-only access to the documents inside your Vault, utilize the 'web client'.  No licenses needed for that.

John Laidler
AutoCAD, Inventor and Vault



Please use "Accept as Solution" & give "Kudos" if this response helped you.
Message 3 of 18
Carl_mgfx
in reply to: john.laidler

Hi jclaidler

 

Thanks for the response.

 

There are users in the plant need access to the Vault as read-write users for processing, BOM adjustments and other tasks requiring them to open the CAD from Vault.

 

Read only users are accessing the Vault through the web client.


Kind Regards
Carl van Rooyen
Application Engineer

Inventor 2019, Vault 2019,
HP ZBook 15u G4, Win 10 64Bit (ver 1709), i7-7500U, 16 GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 620 with AMD Firepro W4190M
Message 4 of 18
john.laidler
in reply to: Carl_mgfx

Makes sense then.  There are ways to utilize the VLOGS and prepare a usage listing.  All of the information is in those logs.  However, there is not equivalent to 'FlexReport' for Vault like with the other Autodesk applications.

John Laidler
AutoCAD, Inventor and Vault



Please use "Accept as Solution" & give "Kudos" if this response helped you.
Message 5 of 18
Carl_mgfx
in reply to: john.laidler

These ways of utilizing the VLOGS is what I am looking for.  We need to be able to see who's using licenses when to get a better understanding of liscense usage and to try avoid license "shortages".

 

I did see a post about using IIS to log this but it made no sense to me, see the info below.

 

"There is no way of doing this in Vault Manager.

However, because ADMS requires you use IIS a suggestion might begin here

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/4a168955-4982-44d5-8a18-e252d37a3557.mspx?mfr=true

e.g install SNMP, FTP, WebSe
perfmon.exe /wmi

I hope this helps you in the right direction.

Richard"

 

I do not come from a strong IT background so this made no sense.  Hopefully someone can shed some light on it.


Kind Regards
Carl van Rooyen
Application Engineer

Inventor 2019, Vault 2019,
HP ZBook 15u G4, Win 10 64Bit (ver 1709), i7-7500U, 16 GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 620 with AMD Firepro W4190M
Message 6 of 18
minkd
in reply to: Carl_mgfx

If you have Vault Collaboration or Vault Pro, you could set up a seperate site for the plant foor folks.  Then in the license manager options you could reserve licenses for the designers by reserving them to the server-name for the designers site.

 

-Dave

 



Dave Mink
Fusion Lifecycle
Autodesk, Inc.
Message 7 of 18
jure
in reply to: Carl_mgfx

If you need Vault license usage tracking software, please try out Lic-Report.

 

The latest version supports Vault 2013 and 2014.

 

Basic functionality can be seen in attached picture.

 

You can download limited, non Vault version from Autodesk APP store:

http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/ACD/en/List/Search?productline=ACD&query=lic-report&facet=&collect...

 

jure@basic.si

 

 

 

Message 8 of 18
Carl_mgfx
in reply to: Carl_mgfx

Thanks all for the input.

 

I will consider the solutions suggested.  We may end up having to go with setting up seperate sites to manage this. 


Kind Regards
Carl van Rooyen
Application Engineer

Inventor 2019, Vault 2019,
HP ZBook 15u G4, Win 10 64Bit (ver 1709), i7-7500U, 16 GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 620 with AMD Firepro W4190M
Message 9 of 18
Carl_mgfx
in reply to: minkd

Hi Dave

 

It looks like we may go the route you suggested with 2 seperate license servers.  I do however need to get some more info from you before we go down this route.

 

  • Would this reserving of licenses be done through the options file?
  • If the options file needs to be used, what syntax would be in the options file to force the "Designers" group to pull licenses from the "Design Server" license server.

I hope I am understanding this solution correctly.


Kind Regards
Carl van Rooyen
Application Engineer

Inventor 2019, Vault 2019,
HP ZBook 15u G4, Win 10 64Bit (ver 1709), i7-7500U, 16 GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 620 with AMD Firepro W4190M
Message 10 of 18
DarrenP
in reply to: Carl_mgfx


@Carl_mgfx wrote:

 

  • Would this reserving of licenses be done through the options file?
  • If the options file needs to be used, what syntax would be in the options file to force the "Designers" group to pull licenses from the "Design Server" license server.

I hope I am understanding this solution correctly.


you would set up this enviroment variable for the designers groups computers
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=8385605&linkID=9240617

 

 

DarrenP
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Message 11 of 18
Carl_mgfx
in reply to: DarrenP

Hi Darren

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

Turns out I was thinking of the wrong thing.  I was thinking of 1 Vault server and 2 license servers (if thats even possible) as oppsed to having two connected workgroups. I.e. 2 Vault and 2 license servers.


Kind Regards
Carl van Rooyen
Application Engineer

Inventor 2019, Vault 2019,
HP ZBook 15u G4, Win 10 64Bit (ver 1709), i7-7500U, 16 GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 620 with AMD Firepro W4190M
Message 12 of 18
DarrenP
in reply to: Carl_mgfx


@Carl_mgfx wrote:

Hi Darren

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

Turns out I was thinking of the wrong thing.  I was thinking of 1 Vault server and 2 license servers (if thats even possible)


its called a distubuted license server

which you can setup with the enviroment variable

DarrenP
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Message 13 of 18
minkd
in reply to: DarrenP

The environment variable to choose which host to get licenses from applies to the host/user requesting the license. In the case of Vault, that host/user is the vault server and impersonation user (AutodeskVault by default). So while you can point different vault servers to request licenses from different license managers, that really doesn't help if all the users are logging into the same vault server.

 

Furthermore, you don't need two license managers to accomplish the desired seperation.

 

The idea is to have two Vault Servers (Server1 for the designers, Server2 for the plant floor folks) and 1 license manager. The options file for the license manager would reserve N licenses to AutodeskVault@Server1, where N is the number of designers.

 

The downside of having two Vault Servers (two sites in one workgroup) is that each site will have a copy of the filestore.

 

-Dave



Dave Mink
Fusion Lifecycle
Autodesk, Inc.
Message 14 of 18
Carl_mgfx
in reply to: minkd

Hi Dave

 

I keep forgettign the fact that the Vault Server requests the license.  So this makes sense to have to seperate the Servers in order to seperate license usage.

 

Thanks to all for the input.  I have a good idea now of what needs to be done.


Kind Regards
Carl van Rooyen
Application Engineer

Inventor 2019, Vault 2019,
HP ZBook 15u G4, Win 10 64Bit (ver 1709), i7-7500U, 16 GB Ram
Intel HD Graphics 620 with AMD Firepro W4190M
Message 15 of 18
Mario-Villada
in reply to: jure

You  might find an alternative solution to find out who has a vault license in My Post

 

Please accept as solution if this solved your problem.

 

Mario.

Message 16 of 18
akosubek
in reply to: DarrenP

@Darren, the link you posted (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=8385605&linkID=9240617) seems broken. - Could you provide another resource or specify what was behind that link?

 

I'm new to the community, but is it usual, that Autodesk breaks links? What about http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html ?

 

Message 17 of 18
jure
in reply to: DarrenP

Dear Sir,


recently you downloaded our "Lic-Report" from Atodesk APP store.
As time limited version already expired, usage is limited (no Users displayed).

If you find this product useful or you would like to test it further, please download a free license from:

http://www.basic.si/lic-report/

The latest version includes Vault 2013 and 2014.
If you want to order unlimited version, we will send you official offer.








Best regards,
Jure ?piler

[http://www.basic.si/slike/mail/basic_logo.gif]

+386 (0)1 5830 100
jure@basic.si
www.basic.si

[http://www.basic.si/slike/mail/var_logo_mail.png]


BASIC d.o.o., Cesta Andreja Bitenca 68, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija
Message 18 of 18
DarrenP
in reply to: akosubek


@akosubek wrote:

@darren, the link you posted (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=8385605&linkID=9240617) seems broken. - Could you provide another resource or specify what was behind that link?

 

 

 


here you go: http://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-specify-license-se...

DarrenP
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