X-Formation celebrates 20 years of success

X-Formation celebrates 20 years of success

We can hardly believe it–X-Formation is 20 years old this month! Twenty years ago, we could not have imagined all that X-Formation would achieve.

X-Formation was founded in Aarhus, Denmark, on March 17, 2004, by Henrik Goldman. An ambitious, passionate entrepreneurial software developer just graduating university, Henrik had a strong vision that holds true today: develop better license management solutions that provide an optimal cost to value ratio, strong software licensing protections, and ease of use for both developers and their licensed software customers.

X-Formation Team - 2008
X-Formation Team,  year 2012.

X-Formation initially developed LM-X License Manager, which went on the market in 2005 and was followed quickly by the first release of License Statistics in 2006. In 2008, X-Formation expanded to open an R&D office in Krakow, Poland. Companion tools to help simplify software license creation and distribution were developed over several years, culminating in the introduction of License Activation Center in 2013. With these three products, X-Formation was able to offer a suite of tools that together provide an end-to-end software licensing solution for every phase of license management.

Within a short time, X-Formation acquired the business of hundreds of customers worldwide. Many of the earliest adopters, including X-Formation’s very first customer, remain customers today. This level of loyalty is our reward for trying our hardest every day to bring our customers a good value proposition that helps keep costs down while offering a world-class product and quick support – something that larger companies often cannot compete with.

Beyond offering an excellent product, fair pricing and reliable support, we believe that much of X-Formation’s success has come from including our customers as an integral part of our company. From day one, we’ve seen our customers as our greatest collaborators. Your input about what’s important to you has provided invaluable guidance to help us evolve and make our products the best they can be.

Of course, our talented, dedicated employees are our number one asset. X-Formation fosters a working environment that respects and values each individual, promotes self-empowerment, and builds teamwork, enabling everyone to have an influence on the success of the company. Our vibrant company culture has lent itself to enduring working relationships, with numerous 10-year anniversary celebrations for our employees over the years.

We’re immensely grateful to everyone who has contributed to X-Formation’s success over the past 20 years, and we look forward to continuing to bring you software solutions that contribute to your own successes for many years into the future.

Cheers!

X-Formation Team - 2024X-Formation Team, year 2024.

X-Formation - Year in Review - 2023

X-Formation – Year in Review – 2023

It’s hard to believe–already, another year is coming to a conclusion. Looking back at the busy year that 2023 proved to be, we are filled with gratitude for all that each and every member of our team has contributed to X-Formation’s successes.

This gratitude extends to you, our customers. Since our beginnings nearly two decades ago, we’ve considered you to be our greatest collaborators. Your input about what’s important to you has provided invaluable guidance to help us to develop license management solutions that make a real difference to hundreds of organizations worldwide.

In this article, we’d like to share with you what we consider to be some of our most important accomplishments over the past year for both License Statistics and LM-X License Manager.

License Statistics

As usual, our License Statistics team has worked hard to expand and improve on all areas of License Statistics, from enhancing ease of use to increasing stability and performance. Let’s take a look at the most notable new features we added to License Statistics in 2023.

License Harvesting

We’ve added two new License Harvesting release methods–Dry Run and Suspend–that give you even greater flexibility for tracking and helping to reduce the waste of idle end-user applications.

Dry Run method

The new “Dry Run” release method is the least aggressive release method, particularly useful for testing how License Harvesting works with specific applications without taking action to close those applications.

This new method is perfect for situations where you want a history of license usage, but you’re concerned about disrupting end users’ work, as you can choose not to alert the user. In this case, application events will be detected and logged, but the end users of the monitored applications won’t receive any alerts for idle applications.

If you do choose to issue an alert, the Dry Run method will inform end-users that their application is idle and recommend that they close it. However, no action will be taken, giving the end user the choice to leave the application open or close the application, as best suits their current situation.

Suspend method

The new Suspend harvesting method gives you more flexibility in the way that you enforce the release of idle licenses. The Suspend method “freezes” the idle license so it can be released to the license pool, and issues an alert to the end user to inform them that use of the application is suspended.

Although the user cannot use the application while suspended, the application remains visible and no data is lost. The end user can resume using the application by responding to the alert or by using the License Harvesting tray icon.

License Statistics Agent

This past year has seen significant improvements for License Statistics Agent, with enhanced license server management, auto-update capabilities, and adjustable agent connection intervals.

License server management

With the addition of server mode for License Statistics Agent, License Statistics administrators can start, stop and restart license servers directly from the Administration > License Servers page within the License Statistics UI. Previously, license server management required going outside of the License Statistics UI, connecting to the proper license server host using SSH or a remote desktop, finding the service/administration tool, and restarting the server.

License Statistics Agent server mode adds convenience and can save considerable time, especially if you’re managing a large number of servers on different hosts or you’re handling numerous requests from users to free up licenses that have become unavailable (for example, due to an application closing ungracefully and taking a long time to release licenses back to the pool).

What’s more, License Management auto-detection using Server Agent detects the services available for the license servers on the host where the selected agent is installed, and the detected services can be used to manage the server remotely (start/stop/restart).

Auto-updating of Agents

Managing License Statistics Agents couldn’t be easier with our newly introduced automatic update capabilities. Simply toggle on the Auto Update option available from License Statistics’ End User Agents page, and License Statistics will schedule updating Agents (version 6.20 or newer) as a newer version becomes available.

You can also schedule updates for individual Agents manually. License Statistics informs you when a newer Agent version is available, and lets you schedule the update procedure with a single click.

Ability to adjust Agent connection interval

We added the ability to adjust the connection interval for License Statistics Agent. Previously, this interval was set to 30 seconds (still the default) and couldn’t be changed. Now, you can increase the interval to up to 10 minutes.

When there are a large number of End User Agents, increasing the connection interval setting will reduce the occurrence of redundant connections, thereby improving performance, with no impact on functionality or difference in the data that’s gathered.

User Experience

Over the past year, we’ve made improvements that help users to better work with and understand License Statistics reports, including dynamic date ranges and improved indicators in reports that show last update time.

Dynamic date ranges

Reports that were filtered using date ranges (for example, “Last Week,” “Last Month,” “Current Quarter,” etc.) used to be static, so reports added to the Dashboard became outdated, showing dates relative to the date the report was generated.

Our newly introduced dynamic date ranges base date ranges on the current date, so reports added to the Dashboard that are filtered using date ranges always contain data relative to today’s date. This alleviates the need to regenerate such reports, saving you time and ensuring that the data you’re viewing is more meaningful.

Last update time indicators

In the last update time color indicators displayed in grids, we now use query intervals elapsed rather than time elapsed, so it’s easier to understand when the last successful query was made.

Administration

We’re always looking for ways to make License Statistics administration easier and more flexible. License storage and management simplification, availability of API resource information, ability to close sessions manually from reports, and the addition of a new Command Line Interface (CLI) tool are among the major improvements introduced during the past year.

License storage and management

In previous versions, License Statistics had to scan the entire directory to find the best license file, since the file could be kept either in the default directory or in a user-specified location. Now, the License Statistics license is stored as an entry in the database, making license management more efficient and secure.

You can also now manage the license using a new Management tab on the Administration > Licensing page that lets you easily view the current Activation Key, reactivate the key, or activate a new key. With this new approach, License Statistics Administrators will find managing the license much more straightforward.

The Licensing page’s Management tab can also be used to upload a license file. This ability is particularly useful when there’s no internet connection on the License Statistics host, the license was activated on a different machine, the license was downloaded from the LAC end-user portal, or other cases where you already have a file to upload.

The Management tab even gives you a license preview, so you can see the current license contents and when the license was last uploaded.

Ability to view API resources

License Statistics reports now let you view details of the API request used to generate the report, including the headers, endpoint and used parameters. This information can be used to facilitate integration with other applications that you want to allow to access License Statistics data; for example, PowerBI or Excel.

Session closing from reports

License Statistics administrators can now more quickly and easily close sessions on the license server and return the license to the available pool using the Features Realtime Sessions and Users Realtime Sessions reports. (Currently available for LM-X and FlexNet license managers only.)

New CLI tool

A new CLI (Command Line Interface) tool replaces the use of scripts. The CLI can alternatively be used for license management as well as other administrative operations such as backing up the database and resetting the default admin user/password.

Linux installers

We’ve introduced the following new Linux installers to help make installations quicker and easier:

  • RPM (RedHat Enterprise Linux distributions)
  • DEB (Ubuntu and Debian distributions)
  • Generic, which allows for customization and/or installation on distributions other than RPM or DEB

The RPM and DEB installations will provide for automatic upgrades from v6.17 on. Upgrading older License Statistics versions to v6.17 and newer still requires a one-time manual upgrade, as done for all previous releases. However, after upgrading to v6.17, you’ll be able to upgrade License Statistics on Linux to v6.17 and newer without uninstalling.

LM-X License Manager Achievements

Over the past year, our LM-X team has stepped up to the challenge of fixing complex issues, ensuring good performance, and maintaining the stability that you’ve come to expect from our full-featured license manager solution. We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we’ve worked hard to solve your unique problems as quickly as possible while continuing to deliver improvements that meet your needs.

Let’s take a look at some of the new features and improvements made by the LM-X team over the past year.

Improved performance

Recognizing the need to optimize performance, we’ve made several improvements that add up to an incredible 30% overall performance increase, including:

  • Upgrading the system used for managing network connections
  • Adding caching for HAL servers state to reduce connection delay when the first server is down
  • Optimizing performance of LM-X license server and client
  • Improving client network optimization by reusing buffers
  • Making token loop detection quicker by performing it only once during license server startup

Expanded support

Many of our customers are moving their licensing to the cloud. To support this growing need, we’ve added a new CLOUD sharing type that gives you the ability to restrict licensing for cloud environments, and we’ve made improvements to optimize cloud detection.

In addition, we’ve added support for Linux 32 bit on ARM, increasing flexibility in how you license your software.

Improved logging and notifications

We’ve made several improvements that help you to get more detailed, focused information from logs, notifications and other types of reporting.

The information available in the client extended log during license checkin has been improved, including the ability to see the vendor’s environment variables, such as connection timeout. The contents of the startup log have also been improved, to give you more clear information about startup events.

In addition to improving logging to give you the information you need, we expanded other communications and notifications, including adding a new option to xmllicgen to display the expiration date, making more information available for harddisk HostIDs, and improving clock check error messages.

New filtering capabilities let you omit unneeded data, with the addition of a flag that filters out virtual ethernet adapters from the HostID list and the ability to filter out empty BIOS HostIDs.

API additions

The LM-X API has been expanded, with the addition of a new function that accommodates virtual machine discovery and cloud host detection. We also introduced brute force password protection and a new administrative API function that allows for password verification when adding an LM-X license server to License Statistics.

Installation improvements

The Linux installer checks for required packages prior to installation and does not proceed with the installation if any required packages are missing.

We’ve also replaced the deprecated license server System V init scripts with systemd init scripts, and added an option to the Windows installer to open required ports.

We want to thank YOU!

As we look back on all the hard work that’s gone into 2023 and recognize our incredible, talented X-Formation team, we want to also be sure to acknowledge you, our customers. We sincerely value the close working relationship that we’ve fostered together. Without your feedback about what’s working and what isn’t, your insightful ideas for improvements, and your willingness to stick with us as we work through tough problems, we couldn’t continue to do what we care so much about: help your business to be more successful.

Our X-Formation team extends our heartfelt thanks to you and yours, and we wish you a joyous, safe holiday and a Happy New Year!

Henrik Goldman
X-Formation Founder and CEO

X-Formation - Year in Review - 2022

X-Formation – Year in Review – 2022

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” — Henry Ford

At this time of year, our thoughts often turn to what we’ve accomplished, and what is to come.

As we look at our past year here at X-Formation, we’re proud of all we’ve achieved together, within our hard-working team and along with you, our customers. We are grateful for all of the suggestions and feedback that you’ve given over the past year to help us make our products the best they can be.

As the new year approaches, we look forward to continuing this collaboration and being part of what helps your business to succeed in 2023 and beyond.

Here, we recount some of the highlights from our accomplishments in 2022.

License Statistics Achievements

Our License Statistics team has been digging in during the past year, improving overall user experience and implementing new features based on customer feedback, to ensure you’re able to effectively and efficiently track your organization’s license usage.

Improved UX

Sometimes, it’s the little things that count the most. We strive to make License Statistics easy for anyone to use, and we’re constantly looking for ways to make our user interface more intuitive and ensure that gathered statistics data is readily accessible and understandable. For example, redesigned chart tooltips now include more information, such as duration of license usage, and are formatted using a labeled list that’s easier to read.

Turning attention to detail, we’ve made layout improvements that make it easier to see information about features, users and hosts, and ensured consistency of labels and content in report grids, information panels, and LDAP Schema Settings to help make License Statistics even simpler to use and understand.

More details in reports

Our comprehensive license usage tracking reports now deliver even more data about current and historical usage, helping you uncover details about available licenses, how many licenses are in use or have been borrowed, utilization percentages, total licenses used, denials, and more. In addition to expanding on reported usage data, we’ve added more information to User properties, such as complete LDAP data, that can easily be shown or hidden in report details.

Improvements for License Statistics Administration

For License Statistics administrators, we’ve added more information to license server usage and license detail grids, and added the ability to invalidate (clear) report cache, customize the LDAP Users Import interval, and receive warnings when host resources are below minimum requirements. New connection settings for Remote Monitoring let you restrict the Hostname field entry to hostname or domain, and allow you to force an HTTPS connection.

We’ve also enhanced error reporting, with improved import validation that accounts for errors that occur when importing usage and denials. The level of events tracked in the log is now customizable, so you can track all events, just warnings and errors, or limit the log to error reporting. Furthermore, we’ve made the report easier to use by improving sorting and filtering, and adding the ability to delete all grid contents at once.

In addition, to make your life a little easier, you can now reset the administrator password to the default password with the click of a button using License Statistics Manager.

License Statistics Agent enhancements

Those who use License Statistics Agents will be happy to know that we now support backward compatibility for License Statistics Agent, up to five minor versions older than the License Statistics version. The Agents grid has been improved with additions to data and the ability to disconnect all agents at one time. We also expanded email notifications by adding a new alert for outdated License Statistics Agents, so you can stay on top of your licensing needs.

Expanded support for license managers and the latest platforms

Always broadening our ability to serve our user community’s diverse needs, we’ve added support for Altium Infrastructure Server (AIS/PLS) and GHS license managers (both support remote monitoring and imports), and expanded support for Dassault license manager to allow for monitoring authorization items.

Keeping up with the latest platforms, we now include support for:

  • Windows 11
  • Windows Server 2022
  • Debian 11
  • Ubuntu 22.04

In addition to these more notable new features and enhancements, we’ve made loads of smaller enhancements and fixes that ensure the stability and quality you’ve come to expect from License Statistics.

LM-X Achievements

With all of the strides made with License Statistics over the past year taking the spotlight, let’s not forget about LM-X License Manager! Our developers have also been striving to make sure that LM-X delivers unbeatable security for your applications while ensuring ease of use for your end-users.

Take a look at just a few of the highlights from the past year’s development work on LM-X.

Expanded support

LM-X now supports:

  • Visual Studio 2022
  • UTF-8 on Windows
  • Raspberry Pi

Miscellaneous enhancements

Over the past year, we’ve made enhancements to LM-X that include:

  • Adding a warning to the license server log when an unlimited license will be reserved
  • Making improvements to license server networking
  • Reducing SDK compilation time
  • Resolving an issue with using secure store between different LM-X versions
  • Fixing an issue with the license server allocating too much memory for network buffers
  • Improving stability for systems that are not POSIX-compliant

We celebrate you!

Without you, our customers, we would not be where we are today. Despite challenging economic times, we have been blessed to celebrate a long working relationship with many of you for 5, 10, or even more years. On behalf of our entire team—many of whom have also been with us for over a decade—I wholeheartedly wish you and your families the best, as we look forward to shared successes in the coming year.

Happy holidays to all, and a prosperous New Year!

Henrik Goldman
X-Formation Founder and CEO

X-Formation - Year in Review

X-Formation – Year in Review

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” — Joshua J. Marine

It’s been an amazing year, full of challenges and successes. Here at X-Formation, our team has been working hard to improve and expand on the capabilities of License Statistics and LM-X License Manager, devoted to helping your business prosper with effective, cost-saving license management solutions.

Now that the year is coming to a close, we’d like to thank you, our customers, for your continued cooperation. We cannot do this without you. All the improvements and new features we’ve delivered during 2021 are based on your invaluable feedback.

Let’s reflect on what we’ve accomplished together over the past year, as we set our sights on making the coming year even better.

License Statistics Achievements

License Statistics users have seen many major new features over the past year, with some of the most significant among them Custom Application Monitoring, streamlined reports, and support for two additional license managers.

Read on to find out more about these capabilities and how they can help you to stay on top of your license management.

Custom Application Monitoring

Many of our customers have been seeing immediate benefits from employing Custom Application Monitoring to track license usage for their end-user applications, even when the application has no license server or log file. We implemented this feature in response to your needs to expand your license tracking abilities and make informed decisions when budgeting for desktop applications.

This new feature leverages License Statistics Agent to gather usage information—such as the time and duration of usage, number of instances used and by which users and hosts—for any user that starts a configured application on any end-user host. The agents then pass the data along to License Statistics for presentation in its usual reports.

With Custom Application Monitoring, you can learn everything you need to know about the usage of any end-user application, helping you stay on top of all your license management needs.

Simplified, streamlined reports

Less is more, with streamlined statistics reporting that both reduces the number of reports and more clearly divides realtime and historical statistics.

With this new structure, you can more quickly drill down to answer specific questions, such as who is consuming licenses in realtime; which users have been denied access to licenses and when; and how one feature’s license usage compares to others.

This all adds up to time savings and enhanced understanding of your license management needs, so you can zero in on how to best optimize your licenses to increase productivity and reduce costs throughout your organization.

Additional support for license managers

With the addition of support for two new license managers, bringing the number of supported license managers to nearly 30 different types, we’re broadening our ability to serve our user community’s diverse needs. Our newly supported license manager types include:

  • Zoo License Manager, with support for remote and imported data sources; feature versioning; and license borrowing (imported data only)
  • CodeMeter Network License Server (remote data sources only)

Once again, we’ve been listening to what you need and responding with all of these valuable new developments, along with the multitude of other fixes and enhancements made to License Statistics in the past year.

But wait—there’s more!

LM-X Achievements

X-Formation’s developers were also bustling during this past year to make sure that LM-X License Manager is reliable and packed with all the features you need to license your software with flexibility and confidence. Among the LM-X team’s most significant accomplishments are the addition of a new “upgrade” license type, support for Linux ARM, and a plethora of stability and performance improvements.

You can find out more about these LM-X advancements below.

Upgrade licenses

Our new “upgrade” license type supplants the “additive” license type, as a much-improved solution. Upgrade licenses let you add licenses for software features that your customers buy after the initial purchase of a license, without changing the original license.

Upgrade licenses increase the license count of exclusive licenses by a particular number of licenses, while simultaneously being completely transparent to the client. This approach allows for greater flexibility in handling license add-ons than were possible with additive licenses, because additive licenses are seen as a separate license pool of the same feature.

We hope you’ll find life a little easier when it comes to license upgrades for your customers, thanks to this new feature.

Support for Linux on ARM

Many customers have asked for support for the Linux ARM 64-bit platform, and we’ve delivered. Linux ARM has been gaining in popularity for high-performance computing (HPC) due to the platform’s exceptionally low energy consumption while maintaining high processing power.

Stability and performance improvements

Over the past year, we’ve made huge leaps in stability and performance. You’ll find that the license server is able to serve many more clients under even greater loads, and LMX_GetLicenseInfo handling performance has been particularly improved.

We do it all for you!

With all the hustle and bustle of bringing 2021 to a close and ushering in 2022, we are filled with gratitude for all of our customers. You bring purpose and satisfaction to every day, knowing that our work is helping to make your business thrive.

With the pandemic continuing to bring challenges into both our business and personal lives, our sincere wish is that you enjoy gathering with your loved ones over the holidays while staying safe and healthy, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with you in the coming new year.

Happy holidays, and a happy and prosperous New Year!

Henrik Goldman
X-Formation Founder and CEO

Public holiday notice for 2024

Dear Customers,

We wish to advise that our office in Krakow will be closed on the following days during 2024:

January 1 (Monday)
April 1 (Monday)
May 1 (Wednesday)
May 3 (Friday)
May 30 (Thursday)
August 15 (Thursday)
November 1 (Friday)
November 11 (Monday)
December 25 (Wednesday)
December 26 (Thursday)

Our sales staff will be unavailable on this day, including both phone and email, so responses to your queries may be delayed.
Thank you for your understanding,

X-Formation Team

The Founding of X-Formation and How the Company have Replaced the Word “Failure” with “Lessons”

Today, we spoke with Henrik about the founding of X-Formation and all the lessons learned in the years the company has been around.

Henrik Goldman founded X-Formation in 2004, and over the past 15 years, the company has come a long way. We have expanded our headquarters and are opening an R&D office. Today, we’re going to look at how far we’ve come and the things we have learned over time through an interview with our founder.

Interviewer: How did you get your idea or concept for X-Formation?

Henrik Goldman: “The idea came about when I was looking at professional products in the field. I was so frustrated about the poor quality of them, it got me saying to myself, ‘I know I can do better.’ The motivation was to give customers better value for their money. For 15 years, this has been the motivation and still is. What’s important to us is giving customers a quality product with good and fast support so they know they found a good business partner.”

How many employees do you have?

“25 people, mostly engineers. We’re an engineering driven company listening to customer requirements and transforming it into solutions.”

What is your ultimate goal or mission for your software licensing programs?

“The goal is to make a difference for customers. It’s a success for me, as the owner, and the team to see customers keep using the software for over 10 years. Collecting as many happy customers as possible, making lives easier for customers, and ensuring that we can be part of their success are all great goals of ours.”

Why do you think X-Formation has been so successful?

“Because of our customer focus. Not many software companies are able to survive for 15 years. In the beginning, many customers asked me personally if the company would still be around after 5 years. 15 years later, I’m sadly not able to answer that since those customers’ companies don’t exist anymore. For those that still do, we’re proud to be part of their success story.”

“Constant focus on the customer and ensuring their happiness is what makes the difference. We’re small compared to many large players, which makes it very important for us to be agile.”

What has been your biggest success with the company?

“To survive for 15 years and to celebrate it with some of the largest companies in the world, many of whom are our customers. Companies generating billions in revenue keep trusting us every day. We’re grateful for that. Having more than 600 companies as our customers keeps us going and growing.”

Have you had failures? How do you learn from them?

“Sadly, most failures have been customer disappointments due to growing pains related to unfit hires. While we strive for the best, it’s not always possible to succeed. Sometimes a bad hiring decision has had an avalanching effect down the line. For that, I’m truly sorry.

The best way to get around this is to quickly resolve whatever problems arise in order to regain trust. Always react fast.

“Fast reactions. Reacting quickly to any problems allows you to correct your mistakes quicker and right your wrongs. Today, I’m proud to be working with a team where all core members have been working with me side-by-side for over five years. It’s remarkable how many good things come out of working with people who you can trust and rely on.”

What would you tell someone looking to get started in the industry or just with their dream?

“Don’t wait, just start! Learn as much as you can, and keep learning every single day! I always say that if you have a talent then it’s your duty to make the most use of it. I am lucky to be in the software industry. An industry I love, and that I find as much a hobby as it is work.

However, success is hard. Work smart.

We’re happy to announce a new website!

New, even more user-friendly layout!

In order to make your time on our website more enjoyable we cut out the unnecessary sections. We didn’t change any urls or the navigation logic. Everything is there in the same place you left it but now it’s better looking!

We also revamped the content!

No one likes to read long descriptions. That’s why we also streamlined our content. It now flows seamlessly with the layout. We used more bullet points so it’s much easier to follow and compare different products. You can even read all about what we have to offer on a single page and then navigate from there to learn more details!

If you haven’t tried License Statistics or our other products yet, it’s a perfect time to do so! Head on to our new License Statistics page.

Case Study: License Statistics helps Walter Leisinger AG keep track of historical license usage data and optimize license purchases accordingly

About Walter Leisinger AG

The Walter Leisinger AG is an engineering company with around 25 employees and over 40 years of experience.

The company’s core activities centre around surveying, planning, and civil engineering. Being familiar with local and regional conditions, Walter Leisinger AG is capable of offering individual counselling and solutions tailored to the specific needs of their customers. Thanks to following high standards of performance and quality management based on ISO, the company can boast a loyal, long-time customer base and is proud to be keeping up with latest industry trends and developments.

The Business Challenge

The company, like many businesses today, wanted to shift their focus on minimizing costs and on effective use of expensive software licenses. Before choosing License Statistics, they didn’t know how many licenses they were using. Walter Leisinger AG wanted to ensure that they had the right number of licenses to accommodate their operations and they wanted to optimize usage of licenses; therefore, the company was looking for an effective license management solution that would help them estimate license costs and plan purchases according to actual license use.

Solutions other than License Statistics were not supplying all information they needed; for example, they didn’t provide storing usage history for monitored applications. License Statistics made all the above possible out of the box and delivered many more powerful features, increasing productivity and the ROI of software investment.

The License Statistics Solution

Walter Leisinger AG chose License Statistics, because the software meets, at an affordable price, their requirements for monitoring license usage over a longer period of time (for example, over a year). License Statistics proved to be a full-featured license monitoring solution that helped them monitor historical data and make well-informed purchasing decisions based on such observations.

Summary

Thanks to License Statistics, Walter Leisinger AG can effectively monitor their license usage and accurately plan license purchases. The company is satisfied with all features of the product, as well as with the high level of technical support provided by X-Formation.

Case Study: RMC chooses easy integration and superior customer support with LM-X License Manager

About RMC

RMC delivers engineering consultancy services for the oil and gas (O&G) industry. With a wealth of experience dating back to 1980s, RMC is able to provide engineering consultancy services even for most demanding and complex industrial and commercial projects.

Currently, RMS is focused on developing the PCS (Pipe Calculation System), an application that provides pipe stress engineers with an interface for a finite element solver (Simulia Abaqus). PCS offers an easy-to-use interface that provides geometric modeling of pipe geometry, post-processing templates, report generation, as well as a number of other features used for finite element simulation of large piping systems.

The Business Challenge

RMC was facing many integration issues with third-party software providers delivering their APIs on a custom python kernel, which proved to be challenging for them. The company needed a licensing solution that would address their licensing needs and would offer a solution capable of integrating some custom APIs.

The LM-X Solution

LM-X License Manager fit the company’s requirements for the software well because it has all the needed features , works without hassles, and the support is excellent. According to RMC, LM-X provides first-class license management utilities even when it’s implemented in fairly uncommon software environments, which is exactly what they were looking for in a software license management solution.

Summary

RMC has been satisfied with the solution they’ve found with LM-X License Manager because LM-X was easy to integrate with their own solutions. They also discovered that X-Formation understands them and is able to address their unique needs by providing effective and quick customer support.

For RMC, LM-X License Manager proved to be the better license management solution, with better flexibility, features, and great technical support.

Case Study: Pemex Exploracion y Produccion uses License Statistics to explore areas for savings

About Pemex Exploracion y Produccion

PEMEX Exploracion y Produccion, part of Pemex, the Mexican state-owned petroleum company, is dedicated to the exploration and production of hydrocarbons across Mexico. Company’s main activities involve oil and natural gas exploration and exploitation, conveyance, storage in terminals, as well as first hand commercialization. PEMEX Exploracion y Produccion dominates the rankings in offshore hydrocarbons production and scores very high in crude production and crude reserves.

The Business Challenge

Before discovering License Statistics, PEMEX Exploracion y Produccion didn’t use any license management solution. However, with the increase in reserves and production of hydrocarbons, the company began to recognize the need for an efficient license monitoring software with powerful reporting capabilities that would effectively measure and manage license usage and optimize software costs.

The License Statistics Solution

PEMEX Exploracion y Produccion chose License Statistics, because X-Formation’s software monitoring tool turned out to be a flexible and adaptable solution that let them measure the volume of demand for software products to optimize investment costs. Through better planning, the company was able to stay on top of its license requirements. What PEMEX Exploracion y Produccion appreciated most about License Statistics was its ability to show license usage based on how many licenses were used for how long and the percentage of utilization for these licenses.

Summary

License Statistics proved to be a reliable technology for measuring the utilization of licenses and providing effective and precise measurement that allows to make well-informed decisions regarding software spend during the entire process in PEMEX Exploracion y Produccion. In addition, License Statistics’ pay-per-use option enables them to appropriate license costs for each of their divisions based on real license usage.

Get to know License Statistics