License Statistics Archives - Software License Management

License Statistics v6.20 - New features and enhancements

License Statistics v6.20 introduces new and improved features, boosting usability and performance

November 23, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

With License Statistics version 6.20, we’ve introduced new features and enhancements that improve usability, performance and stability. Read on to find out more about what’s new in License Statistics v6.20.

New “Dry Run” License Harvesting release method

If you’ve been using–or thinking about using–License Harvesting to track and cut down on idle end-user applications, but are concerned about disrupting your end users’ work, you’ll be interested in our new “Dry Run” release method. The Dry Run 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.

The Dry Run method gathers information about application usage, and optionally issues an alert to inform end-users that their application is idle and recommend that they close it. The alert gives the end user complete control over whether to close the idle application. The user can choose to simply dismiss the message and leave the application open, or the user can close the application, as best suits their current situation.

If you just want to gather information about idle licenses, the Dry Run method lets you choose not to alert the user at all. The Dry Run method will continue to detect and log all application events, ensuring that the administrator has a history of the license usage, but won’t disrupt the end users of the monitored applications.

New auto-update capabilities for License Statistics Agent

This release makes managing License Statistics Agents even easier with the introduction of automatic updates. 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. The request to update the Agent will be made on the next connection. The Agent will download the newer installer from the local License Statistics server (not from any external source or the internet), run the installer, update itself, and reconnect to License Statistics. The Agent informs you of the Update progress using an indicator in the End User Agents table.

(Note that the number of agents that License Statistics schedules to update at the same time is limited to 20 to avoid doing mass updates for setups that have a large number of Agents.)

Improved notifications and other user interface communications

With this release, we’ve made several improvements to the License Statistics user interface, including changes to the way that last update time is reported in grids. Now, last update time color indicators use query intervals elapsed rather than time elapsed, so it’s easier to understand when the last successful query was made.

License Statistics v6.20 also includes improvements to notifications and other communications, such as:

improved end-user notifications that display a Custom Application’s name instead of the executable name for Custom Applications
a new notification for mismatched operating system requirements
a more detailed message in the alert that displays when access to grid data is forbidden
more concise log information for “Unauthorized 401” errors

Fixes to prior versions of License Statistics

In addition to the new features and enhancements described above, this release fixes over a dozen issues that existed in previous versions of License Statistics. These fixes result in overall increased stability and improved performance across many areas of License Statistics, including the user interface, License Statistics Agent, license managers, the API, and the system architecture.

With these most recent improvements, we hope that License Statistics 6.20 will be even better at fulfilling your license management needs. As always, we appreciate your feedback, so please let us know what you think of the License Statistics v6.20 new features and enhancements, and don’t hesitate to contact support@x-formation.com with any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

Learn More

Why LS

November 22, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

Software asset management is a critical part of nearly any business’s success. Software can be very expensive, as well as critical to productivity. A lack of control and understanding of how your software licenses are being used can negatively impact decision making when it comes time to renew or purchase software. Gaining clear insight into your license usage helps both lower the costs and increase the value of your software purchases.

License Statistics offers a complete solution for tracking license usage–whether on the cloud or in-house–that combines full features with unbeatable usability. With support for over 30 different license server types, plus the ability to configure custom applications for monitoring, License Statistics provides extensive flexibility, giving you the ability to monitor all your license servers individually, across your entire organization.

Perhaps best of all, you can begin realizing the benefits that License Statistics offers from day one. License Statistics reports your license tracking information using charts and graphs that anyone can understand, and getting up and running is quick and easy. Simply open License Statistics in any standard web browser, and instantly get the information you need to optimize your organization’s license usage, including:

Which users are consuming the greatest number of licenses, during what hours, and on which hosts, giving you insight into licensing needs per department or region:

Which licenses are unused or underused, eliminating wasted software spend:
Which licenses are in high demand, how often users are denied access to critical software, and when users keep licenses checked out unnecessarily:
Comparison of current and historical usage, helping you to more accurately project optimal budgeting and purchasing strategies:
Which licenses are nearing expiration, so you you’re always up-to-date with your maintenance renewals:
Which license servers are up and running, helping you quickly differentiate between various license server statuses:

License Statistics makes sharing all of this invaluable information between departments simple and straightforward. With a single click, any report can be exported to a CSV, XLSX or PDF file, so everyone in your organization, from individual software users, to IT administrators, to department managers, can stay informed and make sound decisions about software license usage.

Going beyond simple reporting, License Statistics automates license optimization with Custom Application Monitoring and License Harvesting, helping you cut down on underutilized licenses and associated costs. Custom Application Monitoring lets you monitor and control any Windows application, independently of the vendor and license server, gaining accurate information about your organization’s license usage and needs.

Any application set up for Custom Application Monitoring can also be set up for License Harvesting, which automates license sharing by detecting and releasing idle licenses.

Using License Statistics Agent, License Harvesting monitors whether a configured application is actively used. Typically, License Harvesting is used to monitor applications that are licensed using network, token or pay-per-use licensing models, but can be used for any application that you want to prevent from running outside of predefined hours or being idle for a predetermined length of time on the host machine.

When an idle state is detected, License Harvesting releases the license using your preferred method, such as asking the user to close the application or closing it automatically.

If you want to experience the cost-saving benefits of a truly robust, easy-to-use license management and optimization solution that can help you gain control over your IT assets and improve your company’s business operations and profitability, contact us today to find out more about License Statistics!

Get to know License Statistics

Make the most out of a reduced workforce with License Statistics

September 29, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

As many businesses continue to contend with a challenging global economy, reducing workforce to a bare minimum has been necessary for some to stay afloat. Usually taken as a last measure, cutting back on your number of employees may help provide some needed relief, but are you taking all the necessary steps to realize the maximum savings associated with having fewer employees?

One often-overlooked area when decreasing expenses related to individual employees is IT spend. You may not have considered the huge impact that unused or underused software licenses can have on your bottom line. Not only will License Statistics help you eliminate unnecessary IT spend, it will also help you make the most of your existing licenses, ensuring that your reduced workforce is as productive as possible.

Eliminate unused and underused software licenses

As a result of reducing your number of employees, your software license needs will undoubtedly change. Without effective license management in place, you run the risk of having expensive software licenses laying about entirely unused, while other software licenses may actually increase in demand as a result of shifting responsibilities and workloads.

Clearly, with many software licenses costing multiple hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year, not to mention related costs for support and hardware, your savings realized by cutting down on software license waste could be considerable.

Improve productivity

While you want to slash costs related to unused software, you also want to be sure that employees have reliable access to the software they need. Especially after changes in staffing levels, gaining a clear understanding of your new software license usage needs is crucial.

When employees have the latest technologies and consistent access to those resources, they’re able to do their jobs more productively. If reducing your workforce has increased the workload for your remaining employees, you must be particularly diligent in ensuring your remaining employees have all they need to get their work done efficiently.

Get a handle on IT spend

License Statistics delivers invaluable information about how your licenses are used so that you can reevaluate your IT spend. Properly managing your IT assets can have exponential effects. Not only is there an immediate savings on software spend, but as your IT team gains clarity regarding exactly what your expenses are and where you can reduce them, your license management program can continue to result in savings for your business year after year.

With support for over 30 different license managers, as well as the ability to be used with desktop applications and custom software, License Statistics is the only license management tool you need. License Statistics is easy to use and supplies readily understood, shareable reports on license usage throughout your organization.
Laying off employees is never easy. Make sure to get the maximum savings associated with a reduced workforce through proper IT management with License Statistics.

Get to know License Statistics

License Statistics v6.19 brings you increased performance and versatility

August 25, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

With License Statistics version 6.19, we’ve introduced many new features and enhancements that are aimed at making License Statistics more versatile, as well helping you maximize its performance. Let’s take a look at some of the major improvements we’re bringing to you with License Statistics v6.19.

Dynamic date ranges

In previous versions of License Statistics, reports that were filtered using date ranges (for example, “Last Week” or “Current Quarter”) were static, so always showed results relative to the date the report was generated. With v6.19, we’ve greatly improved this capability by enabling dynamic date ranges, which are always relative to the current date.

With this new handling of date ranges, when you add a report to the Dashboard, you’ll always see the appropriate report for the current week, last week, current month, last quarter, etc., relative to today’s date.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to replace any existing reports you’ve added to the Dashboard with a newly generated report using v6.19 or newer in order to see dynamic date ranges in the Dashboard.

New Suspend License Harvesting method

This release adds a new Suspend harvesting method to the License Harvesting modes, giving you more flexibility in the way that you enforce the release of idle licenses.

The Suspend method “freezes” the application so it can be released to the license pool. Although the application cannot be used while suspended, it remains visible to the end user, and no unsaved data is lost. The end user can resume using the application by responding to an alert issued when the application first becomes suspended, or they can resume use of the application at any time using the License Harvesting tray icon.

To use the new Suspend method, you must have License Statistic Agent v6.19 and install the free Optional Harvesting Tools, which is easily done during installation or upgrade of License Statistics v6.19 (or newer).

Ability to adjust Agent connection interval

License Statistics v6.19 adds the ability to adjust the connection interval for License Statistics Agent, which can provide significant performance benefits.

In previous releases, this interval was set to 30 seconds (still the default) and could not be adjusted. Now, you can increase the interval to up to 600 seconds (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.

While increasing the interval can benefit performance, keep in mind that with a higher connection interval, configuration changes will be applied to Agents less often.

Manual session closing

License Statistics administrators will enjoy the added convenience of being able to close sessions on the license server directly from Features Realtime Sessions and Users Realtime Sessions reports.

Administrators can manually force the session to release on the corresponding license server and return the license to the available pool. (Available for LM-X and FlexNet license managers only.)

Additional new features and enhancements

In addition to the changes detailed above, this release brings you a number of other new features and enhancements, most notably:

You can now disable Custom Application event logging, which you can do either globally–for all applications–or for individual applications
In addition to allowing realtime data gathering for Dassault license managers, v6.19 now allows you to import usage from Dassault log files
When viewing Anonymization data for License Servers, you can now filter results to show/hide the display of anonymized users, hosts or both
The Custom Application grid now includes details for License Harvesting configuration options

We hope that the new features and enhancements we’ve incorporated into License Statistics will be valuable for meeting your license management needs. As always, we appreciate your feedback, so please let us know what you think of the new features and enhancements we’ve delivered with License Statistics v6.19, and don’t hesitate to contact support@x-formation.com with any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

Learn More

Importing License Statistics data to Amazon QuickSight

August 3, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

Amazon QuickSight is a cloud-scale business intelligence (BI) service that lets you connect to and combine your cloud data from many different sources – such as AWS data, spreadsheet data, third-party data, etc. – in a single dashboard. Many of our customers gain new insights into usage data by importing the data from License Statistics reports into QuickSight, where they can prepare and “Visualize” the data to be shown in dashboards.

As a SaaS solution, QuickSight doesn’t have direct access to License Statistics or its database that’s installed at the customer site. Although there are a few approaches you could take, our recommended solution for importing License Statistics data to QuickSight is to import a comma-separated file (.csv) to the QuickSight service, which we’ll cover in this article, including:

Downloading License Statistics report data to a .csv file
Creating a new dataset from an imported file
Preparing and visualizing the data
Updating the file contents if needed

This article does assume some basic knowledge of using QuickSight, so if you aren’t familiar with its usage, please see complete help for QuickSight at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/quicksight.

Let’s get started!

Download License Statistics report data to a .csv file

First, download the License Statistics report data you want to import to QuickSight. For our example, we’re exporting data to .csv format.

To download report data, select “.csv” from the options under the Save As button at the bottom right of any License Statistics usage data list. (Note that License Statistics handles exporting the report data, so downloading reports does not require an internet connection.)

See License Statistics help for complete details on downloading License Statistics data.

Create a new dataset from an imported file in QuickSight

Make sure your .csv file complies with QuickSight’s data source limits. Your file must be 1GB or less.
From the Amazon QuickSight start page, click Datasets to access the Datasets page.
Click New dataset in the upper right of the page to open the Create a Data Set page, which allows you to create a new dataset.
Click Upload a file in the upper left of the page to browse for an existing file.
Browse to the location where you saved the .csv file, select the file, and click Open to open the file. (If you need to update the file, see “Refresh the existing dataset,” below.)
You can either create an analysis using the License Statistics data as-is or prepare the data before creating the dataset.
1. If no data preparation is needed, click Visualize. This will result in the dataset being named identically to the source file name. You can learn complete details about using QuickSight Visualization in the QuickSight documentation section, Visualizing data in Amazon QuickSight.
2. If you need to prepare the data first, click Edit/Preview data. This will let you make any needed adjustments, as well as specify a dataset name, prior to using Visualization. You can learn complete details about data preparation in the QuickSight documentation section, Preparing data in Amazon QuickSight.

Refresh the existing dataset (optional)

Optionally, you can update files in your dataset whenever needed to get the latest version of the .csv file.

Note: Before updating a file, always make sure that the fields in the new file are identical and in the same order as the original file in the dataset. Otherwise, an error will occur and you’ll need to edit the new file to match the original file, and then try updating again. If you need to add new fields to the file, be sure to append them after the original fields.

To update the file:

From the Datasets page, select the dataset you want to update, and then click Edit dataset. This will open a data preparation page.
Click on the caret next to the file you want to update, and from the drop-down menu, choose Update file. This will open the Update file page.
Click Upload file, and then navigate to and select the .csv file. QuickSight will scan the selected file.
Click Confirm file update from the page that opens. You’ll see a preview of some of the sheet columns for reference to ensure you’ve selected the correct file.
When the update is complete, a message at the upper right of the page will indicate the success of the update, and the table preview will refresh to display the new file contents.

We hope this article has helped you understand how to get even more value out of your License Statistics data by importing it to QuickSight. If you have questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Get to know License Statistics

License Statistics v6.18 is chock-full of major improvements and new features

June 23, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

With License Statistics version 6.18, we’ve introduced a combination of over 40 new features and enhancements that are sure to make License Statistics even more easy and efficient to use. Let’s take a look at some of the major improvements we’re bringing to you with License Statistics 6.18.

Auto-detection of license servers on the host with Server Agent

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).

License storage and management changes

One of the most significant changes in this version involves storage and management of the License Statistics license.

As of this version, the License Statistics license is no longer kept as a file, but as an entry in the database. In previous versions, License Statistics used 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. By storing the file in the database, license management has been made more efficient and secure. To configure the license, you can now use either the License Statistics Manager or the new CLI, giving you options that fit your needs.

Rather than using the License Statistics Manager, management of the license can now be done directly from the UI, using a new Management tab available on the Administration > Licensing page. As part of this change to the UI, the Licensing page is now split into three tabs: Usage, History, and Management.

With this new approach, License Statistics Administrators will find managing the license much more straightforward. The new Management tab lets you easily view the current Activation Key, reactivate the key, or activate a new key.

In addition, you can use the Licensing page’s Management tab to upload a license file (for example, if 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.

Introduction of new CLI tool

This version also introduces a new CLI (Command Line Interface) tool, which 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.

Ability to view API resources

Along with numerous improvements to data made available in reports, License Statistics reports now include the ability to view API resources.

For most reports (other than Administration reports, which do not support a public API), you can see a preview of the API resources for that report by clicking a “Show API resource” icon at the upper right corner of the report.
After clicking this icon, an API Resource window opens, with details of the API request used to generate the report, including the headers, endpoint and used parameters. You can use this information to facilitate integration with other tools, such as PowerBI, Excel or any other application that you want to allow to access the License Statistics data.

Additional enhancements

In addition to the changes detailed above, this release contains nearly 40 enhancements, among them:

MySQL has been upgraded to v8.0
The Enable Harvesting area of the Harvesting tab has been redesigned, making it easier to set up triggers for harvesting
Anonymization of hosts now includes the IP address in addition to the host name
The main feature for Autodesk is now included in reports when using Feature Collections
New columns have been added to reports, including a License Server multicolumn for several reports and Expiration Date subcolumns for grids that contain a Feature multicolumn
You can now import FlexNet logs with multiple vendor daemons by setting the Vendor Daemon Name (this setting has been moved from the Remote Monitoring tab to the General tab under the License Servers page)
Autodesk features can now have human-readable display names
Restarting the service using License Statistics Agent has been improved by displaying a Restart confirmation message only when the service is up, and allowing you to restart directly from the confirmation message or at any time by using a new Restart tray option

We hope that these significant new features and enhancements will help to make License Statistics easier for you to use and manage. As always, we appreciate your feedback, so please let us know what you think of the new features and enhancements we’ve delivered with License Statistics v6.18, and don’t hesitate to contact support@x-formation.com with any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

Learn More

How to import data from License Statistics into Excel using Power Query

How to import data from License Statistics to Excel using Power Query

May 8, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

Many of our License Statistics customers are using Excel’s Power Query tool to transform and prepare data. Power Query not only lets you import data from a variety of sources, but gives you the ability to transform and use the data to suit your needs. Using Power Query, you can set up a query once, and then reuse the query by “refreshing” the data as often as needed.

This article gives you step-by-step instructions specifically for importing License Statistics data directly into Excel using Power Query.

In Excel, click From Web under the Data ribbon to open the Power Query editor.
In the From Web pane, toggle on Advanced

Under the URL parts area, add lines for the parts as shown in the following table and illustration:

Part type	Setting
Host	http://ls-lin-stage.int.x-formation.com
API path	/api/v3/license-server/15/usage-per-user/json
Query parameters	lsid=15 sd=2023-01-01 ed=2023-01-31 grat=DAY agrt=USER_HOST offset=0 limit=100

Under “HTTP request header parameters,” add an X-Auth-token header using a token generated from License Statistics, and click Add header.
Click OK to continue.
Choose Anonymous as the web content access type, and click Connect.
Click Info Table under the Content ribbon.
Optionally, you can name the query using the Properties area under Query Settings. In our example, we named the query “Usage Per User” to indicate the type of data being retrieved.
Select data list from the table.
Click To Table under the Transform tab to convert the data list to a table.
In the resulting “To Table” pane, choose None as the delimiter, and choose Show as errors to handle extra columns.
Click OK.
Click the expand icon in the upper right of the Queries table to expand the table columns.
Click Load more at the bottom of the list to load all the columns.
Select the columns to include in the query; for example:
- un
- hn
- lsn
- fns
- fv
- massage
- hu
- mu
- ldtc
- ft

Optionally, you can rename columns by right-clicking on the column header and choosing Rename from the right-click menu.
For example you might rename columns to their corresponding label found in License Statistics:

- us = Username
- hn = Host
- lsn = License Server
- fns = Feature Name
- fv = Feature Version
- musage = Max Usage
- hu = Hours Used
- mu = Max Used
- ldtc = Denials
- ft = Total

Click Close & Load.
If you want to refresh data automatically, perform the following additional steps:

- Go to Queries & Connections under Excel’s Data tab, and select Properties.
- In the External Data Properties dialog, click Query Properties.
- Under the Usage tab, set the refresh options as desired.

We hope this article has been helpful for understanding all you need to know to import your License Statistics data into Excel using Power Query. If you have questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Get to know License Statistics

How to set up Siemens NX license server monitoring

April 3, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

Based in Munich, Germany, and with offices abroad, Siemens Digital Industries Software (previously Siemens PLM) is Europe’s largest industrial manufacturing company. One of their most popular products is NX, a CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite that provides leading-edge design, simulation, and manufacturing solutions.

This article gives you all the details you need to quickly and easily set up a Siemens NX license server for monitoring with License Statistics, including enabling remote monitoring, which lets you see usage information from the time you add the license server to License Statistics. (Note that although NX has multiple licensing models, License Statistics supports only the floating license model.)

How to add a new Siemens NX license server

Adding your Siemens NX license server is quick and easy using the license server setup wizard in the License Statistics UI. (If you aren’t familiar with adding and editing license servers, see License Statistics help for complete information.)

You’ll need to have License Statistics administrator privileges to add a new license server. Setup will take just a few simple steps, including:

Defining general information for the license server
Enabling remote monitoring
Setting up remote license server management (optional)
Enabling log file importing (optional)

Read on to learn how to get your NX license server up and running in no time!

Enter the General license server information

Open License Statistics, and go to Administration > License Servers. (You must have License Statistics administrator privileges to access this page.)
Click Add to open the Add License Server wizard.

The General tab of the Add License Server wizard lets you define the license server.
1. At a minimum, enter the license server name, and select FLEXlm/FlexNet as the license server type.
2. Optionally, you can enter a description for the license manager, and under the Vendor section, add a name to display for the vendor in reports. (The Vendor Name entry will be automatically detected and visible after the first successful query or import.)

Enable remote monitoring

After you have completed entering the information in the General tab of the Add License Server wizard, you can move on to enabling remote monitoring, which lets you see usage information from the time the license server is added to License Statistics to be monitored.

To enable remote monitoring:

From the General tab, click Next to go to the Remote Monitoring tab. (The Next button won’t be available until you’ve entered the required information in the General tab.)

In the Remote Monitoring tab, make sure that Enable Remote Monitoring is toggled on (this is the default).

Under the General section of the Remote Monitoring tab:
1. If needed, edit the path for the query tool needed to monitor the server. This query tool is delivered by the application vendor.
2. If multiple daemons are run on the same license server, enter the Vendor Daemon Name, which defaults to “ugslmd.”
3. Select your desired query interval, which is the time in minutes between each license server query. You can choose between 1, 2, 5, and 10 minutes.
4. Toggle on the data types you want to gather (FLEXlm/FlexNet license managers allow only for Usage data gathering).

Under the Connection section of the Remote Monitoring tab:
1. Toggle on Redundant to enable redundant servers if desired. (If you toggle on redundant servers, you must enter the hostname and port information for three servers.)
2. Enter the hostname for the Siemens NX server. (This is required, so you won’t be able to verify or save the server until you enter the hostname.)
3. Change the port if needed. The default port is 28000. (Note that this differs from the default FlexNet port, 27000.)
If you want to check that your connection to the Siemens NX server is working, click Verify at the bottom of the Remote Monitoring tab. (Although recommended, this step isn’t required, because verification happens automatically when you save the license server.) The verification results appear in a popup window.

Click Save to File at the bottom of the verification results window to save the verification results to a file if needed (for example, if there are issues with verification, you may be requested to send this file to X-Formation Support to assist with troubleshooting).
Click Close at the bottom of the verification results window to return to the Remote Monitoring tab.

After setting up remote monitoring, you’re ready to move on to the Server Agent tab, where you can enable remote license server management.

Set up remote license server management (optional)

Optionally, you can manage license servers remotely (currently limited to Start, Stop, and Restart operations for LM-X and FlexNet license managers only) by using a Server Agent.

You must first have an Agent installed, as described in Installing and configuring License Statistics Agent. (You may enable remote license server management either when initially creating the license server or by editing the license server later.)

To enable remote license server management:

From the bottom of the Remote Monitoring tab, click Next to go to the Server Agent tab.

Select a Server Agent to use for the license server.

Finally, you will move on to the Importing tab, where you can enable log file importing for the license server.

Enable importing for the license server

Finally, you can enable importing the log file using the License Statistics UI or API.

To enable importing:

Click Next from the bottom of the Server Agent tab to go to the Importing tab.

Toggle on Enable Importing to enable log file importing (the default).

Save the license server

From the Importing tab, click Save and Close to save the license server and close the Add License Server wizard.

Your Siemens NX license server monitoring setup is complete, and after a minute or so, will start automatically. License Statistics will display the data for your Siemens NX license usage in its usual easy-to-read grids and reports.

Get to know License Statistics

GET TRIAL

GET PRICING

VIEW LIVE DEMO

Let us know what you think!

We hope this article was helpful in walking you through configuring License Statistics to track your Siemens NX license server usage. You can learn more by visiting the License Statistics documentation, and as always, feel free to contact us at support@x-formation.com with your questions or comments.

Learn More

License Statistics v6.17 saves you time with new license server management capabilities

January 20, 2023| Gabrijel Zelic| in category License Statistics No comments yet

With License Statistics version 6.17, we’re excited to announce new License Server Management capabilities (currently for LM-X and FlexNet license servers only).

In prior versions of License Statistics, in order to restart a license server (e.g., to force unused licenses to be released, restart a server that became unstable, etc.), the License Statistics administrator had to go outside of the License Statistics UI, connect to the proper license server host using SSH or a remote desktop, find the service/administration tool, and restart the server.

Now, starting, stopping and restarting a license server can be done directly from the License Statistics UI. This new feature adds convenience and can save considerable time, especially when managing many servers on different hosts and/or there are 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.

In addition, v6.17 has added Server mode for License Statistics Agent. Initially, Server Agents will facilitate license server management, with additional features planned for future releases.

This release also introduces new Linux installers:

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.

Along with these new features, we’ve made several enhancements and fixes to existing functionality; most notably:

Added information about unlimited hosts on the Licensing page for HPC
Added support for RedHat Enterprise Linux 9.

We’re working hard to bring features to License Statistics that make your job easier, and we always appreciate your feedback. Let us know what you think of the new features and enhancements we’ve delivered with License Statistics v6.17, and don’t hesitate to contact support@x-formation.com with any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

Learn More

X-Formation – Year in Review – 2022

December 27, 2022| Gabrijel Zelic| in category Company, License Statistics, LM-X License Manager No comments yet

“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

Learn More