Understanding license denials is a critical part of License Asset Management. How do license denials work? Imagine going to a bookstore and borrowing 10 books. But you get a different job, family situations come up or anything else, and you become so busy that you don’t have time to read all 10. Should you have only gotten a few and then bought some more as you had time? The same logic could apply with engineering software licenses.
“Denials” occur when a shared license User attempts to get a tool license, but the license server daemon refuses. This is most often because all licenses are currently checked out. As an example, suppose you purchased 4 shared licenses of a certain tool, 2 licenses on server A, and 2 licenses on server B.
Say that all server A licenses are checked, but one is available on server B. The User may go to server A and get denied, but immediately does get a license from server B. Server A records a “denial”. This is what is called a ‘false denial’. Other situations may report false denials, so a good denial reporting system must filter out false denials.
Getting a denial while accessing your core engineering software not only delays the current project but can affect your entire workflow! How are you handling engineering license denials? Are you able to leverage denial reporting to establish an optimal checkout schedule?
Discover how LAMUM increases productivity by delivering true oversight of your expensive engineering tools. Get alerted when denials occur, when a license is free and when you are near capacity.
LAMUM is a comprehensive software asset management tool for consolidating all engineering software assets, licenses, and vendor information while providing complete current and historical usage information. Our proprietary software monitors the leading CFD Programs: ANSYS, Autodesk, AVL Simulation Suite, CD Adapdo/Siemens, Converge (Reprise), FloEFD & FloTherm, Flow-3D, NUMECA, Pointwise, Phoenics, ANSA, as well as many other EDA, CAD, Simulation and testing software tools.
In summary, there are a lot of different ways to approach License Management. How much you choose to manage is dependent on importance and resources available. In order of importance and ease to implement:
- Track inventory of Shared license assets by Product or Bundle
- Track Vendor information including Contacts
- Track license expiration dates
- Track license costs and POs
- Track all Contracts and Agreements
- Track feature checkouts of FLEXlm shared license managers
- Track inventory of Shared and Standalone (node-locked) license assets
- Track “Executable” of Standalone licenses
At TeamEDA we can help you assess the software denials and offer you a data-driven recommendation on how to resolve them, which do not necessarily require purchasing more software licenses.
But how can organizations best use their teams to make sure licenses are managed properly? LAMUM’s features support a host of job functions, and so to fully implement LAMUM the following personnel should be made available:
- IT person to install the LAMUM software, setup email alert system, and install periodic upgrades (occasional job)
- License Asset Manager – person responsible for keeping track of license inventory of both shared and standalone license assets, contracts, POs, manage Vendor and contact information… (part time job)
- License Administrator – person who will manage license files using a revision control system (CVS), manage daemons, interface with IT, and create current checkout portals, historical utilization and denial reports as needed. (full time job if greater than 1000 Users)
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