License Statistics v6.17

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

January 20, 2023| | 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!

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License Statistics v6.16

License Statistics v6.16 adds new features and improves user experience

November 9, 2022| | in category License Statistics No comments yet

With License Statistics version 6.16, we are excited to announce the addition of support for another new license manager, Altium Infrastructure Server (AIS/PLS) license manager (remote monitoring and import), as well as adding remote support for Green Hills Software (GHS) license manager (which we added in License Statistics 6.15 with import support only).

We also expanded our email notifications by adding a new alert for outdated License Statistics Agents. By enabling this alert, when an unsupported Agent version attempts a connection to License Statistics, you’ll receive email notifications for the first occurrence per user, daily if there are outdated agents, after a License Statistics update if there are outdated agents.

We take pride in truly listening to our customers, and we’ve made several enhancements in response to your feedback and requests, improving overall user experience. Some highlights of this release’s enhancements include:

  • The User column in reports now includes additional columns for all User properties (including LDAP data) that can be toggled to be shown or hidden in the report details
  • Improvements to Connection settings on the Remote Monitoring tab restrict the Hostname field entry to only the hostname or domain. In addition, a new “Secured” checkbox can be used to force an HTTPS connection.
  • It’s now quick and easy to reset your administrator password to the default password with the click of a button using License Statistics Manager
  • You can control the detail level of License Statistics events included in the log file, with options to include all events, just warnings and errors, or limit the log to include only error reporting
  • Improved import validation accounts for errors that occur when
    • importing denials, and real-time denials are supported and enabled
    • importing usage, and real-time usage monitoring is enabled
  • Improved consistency of labels and content in report grids, report exports to external formats, General Information panels, and LDAP Schema Settings help make the UI more intuitive
  • The ability to resize the SQL Query field in the SQL Console makes it easier to enter, edit and view your queries

Please also note that we’ve updated system requirements for this release, with dropped support for Debian 9.

We’re always striving to improve License Statistics to be easy to use and incorporate the feedback you give us. Let us know what you think of the new features and enhancements we’ve delivered with License Statistics v6.16, and please don’t hesitate to contact support@x-formation.com with any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

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License Statistics v6.15

License Statistics v6.15 improves usability and expands support

July 5, 2022| | in category License Statistics No comments yet

With License Statistics version 6.15, we are excited to announce support for yet another license manager, Green Hills Software (GHS) (currently import only), bringing our number of supported license managers to over 30. In addition, we’ve expanded our support for Dassault license manager to allow for monitoring authorization items.

We’ve also updated system requirements with this release, and expanded support to include the latest platforms:

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

Always dedicated to providing you with new features and enhanced usability, we’ve paid special attention to making License Statistics reports even more robust and easy to use with this release. Most notably:

  • Added a count for available licenses in the general information area, graphs and charts for Features Realtime Usage and History Usage reports
  • The Administration – License Servers – Usage grid now shows features, users, and hosts in a separate panel instead of using tooltips as in previous versions, and allows for exporting the grid data.*
  • The Administration – License Details grid now shows users and hosts in separate grids instead of using tooltips as in previous versions, and allows for exporting the grid data.
  • The Administration – Support – Event Log grid ow has improved sorting and filtering capabilities and you can now delete all grid contents at once.
  • The Users Realtime Usage grid now includes details for the number of borrowed and total licenses, as well as utilization percentage.
  • The User Usage History grid now includes details for minimum, maximum, average and total number of licenses used; minimum number of borrowed licenses, and number of denials.
  • Tooltips for time-oriented charts now include duration of license usage, and all chart tooltips have been redesigned to use a labeled list format that is easier to read.

In addition to these new and enhanced features for reports, we’ve made a number of enhancements related to License Statistics Agent, including:

  • Backward compatibility for License Statistics Agent versions up to five minor versions older than the License Statistics version.*
  • The Agents grid now includes the Agent ID, and allows for disconnecting all agents at one time.

For License Statistics administrators, we’ve added the ability to invalidate (clear) report cache; customize LDAP Users Import interval; and receive warnings when host resources below minimum requirements.

Our goal is to continuously improve License Statistics in ways that are beneficial for you and directly address the feedback you give us. We’d love to hear how you like our improved reports and the rest of the new features and enhancements we’ve delivered with License Statistics v6.15! As always, please feel free to contact support@x-formation.com with any questions. We’ll be delighted to serve you.

*Available only with the 2019 licensing model.

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A Year of License Statistics in Review

A Year of License Statistics in Review

July 8, 2021| | in category License Statistics No comments yet

The past 12 months have seen major upgrades and enhancements in License Statistics, including powerful new features and redesigned monitoring tools for increased control and usability. Here’s why you should be using the latest version of License Statistics.

Over the last year, we’ve delivered important updates and enhancements to License Statistics to help you get even better control over your software license budget. The latest version of License Statistics includes:

  • License Harvesting with automatic license release.
  • The License Statistics Agent, enabling new features such as Autodesk named user license tracking.
  • Feature and User Reservations.
  • API enhancements.
  • New and enhanced reporting tools.

Here’s what you need to know about the key features released in the past year.

License Harvesting with Automatic License Release

License Harvesting helps you eliminate the extra costs associated with purchasing spare licenses by monitoring users’ machines to see when licenses are unused (e.g. due to meetings, coffee breaks, etc.). Every company has peak days when the highest number of licenses are used. License Harvesting helps you monitor and respond to such peaks by reducing idle license consumption and automatically return those licenses to the available pool.

Automatic remote license release for LM-X and Flexnet license servers was introduced in License Statistics v6.10. This gets idle licenses back into the available license pool just after the Agent has closed the end-user application. No more waiting or manual intervention required – simply set it and forget it.

See the License Harvesting documentation for more information.

The License Statistics Agent

License Statistics Agent is a License Statistics add-on tool that enables client usage monitoring for software using locally running applications that must be tracked on the clients themselves. License Statistics Agent communicates between these applications and License Statistics, running as a service in the background.

License Statistics Agent currently supports monitoring for Autodesk license usage and Autodesk named user licenses, and is currently available for Windows installations.

See the License Statistics Agent documentation for more information.

User and Feature Reservations

Customer enhancement requests are one of our top priorities. Several customers had requested a way to view User and Feature reservations to further simplify software license asset management tasks. The User and Feature Reservations pages were the result.

The User Reservations page provides an overview of all reservations across all features and license servers for a selected user or group. You’ll find the User Reservations page under the Users section in the left navigation pane. (See the documentation for User Reservations for details.)

The Feature Reservations page provides an overview of all reservations for a selected license server and feature. You’ll find it under the Features section in the left navigation page. (See the documentation for Feature Reservations for more details.),

API Enhancements

Not only did we release a significant update to the License Statistics API with API v2, but we released the first version of API v3.

With API v2 came enhancements making it much cleaner and easier to use. New endpoints were implemented to make it even more extensive. The API v3 release lays the groundwork for future API enhancements and releases. It includes extended reports that allow extended selection of all license servers and features.

See the API documentation and interactive API tool documentation for more information.

New and Enhanced Reporting Tools

We were also quite busy this past year building new reporting tools and enhancing / extending current ones.

User Usage History report now gives you the ability to view license usage history by a selected user or group (available only with the new licensing model). The report makes it easy to select the user/user group for which you want to view usage history and specify time intervals to include in the results.

We are devoted to simplifying your license administration tasks through detailed reporting and complete automation of routine tasks – including recapture of idle licenses that would otherwise cost you hundreds of lost productivity hours every month.

As always, please contact support@x-formation.com with your questions. We’ll be delighted to serve you.

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