How Licensing Works |
 
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How Licensing Works |
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You can choose whether to have the Network Licensing Client operate automatically or manually, by selecting or de-selecting the Operate Automatically option. Automatic operation is more convenient for most users. However, ‘power users’ may prefer to use manual operation, for example to hold on to a licence indefinitely.
With automatic operation, the Network Licensing Client requires no user intervention. When Flexcom requires a licence, it automatically requests one. If there are no licences available, or if there is some other error, it will display a message to inform you. A number of points regarding the acquirement of licenses in automatic mode are noteworthy:
1.When you launch the Flexcom User Interface (UI), no license is requested by the software. This affords you full access to all the features provided by the UI, and avoids any locking of licenses unnecessarily. For example, you may build a model using either the Table Editor or Keyword Editor, availing of the structure preview facility while the model is under development, and you have full access to the comprehensive context-sensitive help. It is also possible to examine results from analyses which have been performed previously.
2.As soon as you proceed to performing an actual finite element analysis, Flexcom will automatically request a license from the network server, and obtain one assuming there is a free license available.
3.Once you have successfully obtained a license, it remains assigned to you for the entire duration of your current Flexcom session (you manually release it using the Network Licence Client). This prevents other users in the network from accessing your license and preventing you from performing further finite element analyses.
4.When you shut down the Flexcom UI, the software automatically releases any licences assigned to you and shuts down the Network Licensing Client, assuming that all your finite element analyses have completed. If there are any analysis runs still in progress, and you wish to close the UI, leaving these analyses to run in the background, then any licences obtained during the session will remain assigned to you. You must free these licences manually yourself at a later stage – otherwise you will prevent other users in the network from accessing them. You should also manually shut down the Network Licensing Client at this point. Before the UI closes, you will be issued with an appropriate warning message to this effect.
With manual operation, Flexcom cannot request licences automatically. Instead, you must use the Get License and Release License buttons. Neither can Flexcom shut down the Network Licensing Client automatically; you must do this manually using the Shutdown button. However, if Flexcom needs a licence, or if the Network Licensing Client is no longer required and may be shut down, a message is displayed in the status area advising you of this fact.
The Network Licensing Client should start automatically when you run Flexcom. However, you can also start it manually from the Top Menu Bar within the UI, or by selecting it from the Flexcom program group in the Windows Start Menu.
The logic, as currently implemented in Flexcom 8.13, is as follows:
1.The user interface or the finite element engine calls a function in the licensing DLL.
2.The code in the DLL determines from the MCSCode file whether or not you are using a network license.
3.For a network license, the client application is requested (it is started if necessary) and the "get" command is sent to the client to acquire the license for the requested module.
4.The client application then checks if it can connect to the server and if it can it acquire the license. The server can be a physical server in the case of a NetHASP hardware dongle, or an online platform in the case of a Web-Hosted license.
5.When the license is acquired, the session duration that is configured on the licensing server is used as a license expiry timeout (this is currently configured at 10 minutes).
6.Every 5 minutes (on a timer) the client application does the following:
•checks if the finite element engine has requested license release (analysis run is finished)
•checks if the license session has expired
•checks if it is less than 30 seconds to the license session expiration
7.If the license release is requested, the client will continue running and retain the license until the license session expires.
8.If the license is not released and the license session is about to expire (less than 30 seconds to expiry), the client will reacquire the license - this resets the license session to the configured duration (10 minutes).
The above logic guarantees that the license is retained for a minimum of the license session expiry timeout. This prevents frequent license requests to the license server and ensures that such requests happen about once every 10 minutes, regardless of the number of simulations which are in progress.
Web hosted license logic differs very slightly from other modes of network licensing (NetHasp and SRM). For the web hosted set-up, the client app waits for the session expiry before shutting down, so if there is a number of analyses running in succession it prevents the client app from stopping and restarting too often. This reduces the risk for license instability when working on slow or intermittent internet connections.
Token licensing is slightly different from the others. Here an additional check is performed on the available tokens. If sufficient tokens exist, a consume request is sent. It runs integrated in the product via the license DLL rather than via the client app.