License Counting

[Nancy Palmquist]

On 11/30/2015 12:58 PM, Kenneth Brody via Filepro-list wrote:
> On 11/30/2015 12:52 PM, Chris Rendall via Filepro-list wrote:
>> Does filePro considered a license used when updating a record in *clerk?
>> IIRC, the license isn't counted as used until a record is being updated.
>> If the user is just viewing a record at the "Enter Selection >" prompt I
>> didn't think that used a license.
>
> The license is acquired before anything is displayed on the screen, 
> long before you get to updating a record.
>
>> I was trying to come up with a way to find out how many licenses we are
>> currently using.  I wrote a simple Linux script to count up the 
>> number of
>> *clerk and *report processes, but if the license doesn't count when just
>> viewing, my script won't be accurate.
>
> Simply running a *clerk/*report process uses a license.
>
>> Is there a way in 5.0.14 to get an accurate license count used?
>
> I believe this is pre-license manager, correct?  Then using "ps" might 
> be the best way to count *clerk/*report processes.  (Of course, if you 
> were to have, for example, 10 dclerks sitting at the "too many users" 
> error screen, your script would see 10 more processes than were 
> actually being used.)
>
Using "ps" to get a process count will tell you very little if starting 
*clerk or *report from a SYSTEM command does not count against the 
license.  You have no way of telling those occurrences from the regular 
sessions.  If you know the system well enough to exclude those 
possibilities, you might be close.  But any count using ps is a snapshot 
at one point in time.  On a *nix system, some things can run so fast you 
may never see them.  We tried to see a more granular count to try to see 
how our users were hitting the system and it was impossible to be too 
exact.

I have  many hits per second at times and by the time I run a script to 
do a count, many more have started and finished also.  To do better than 
that, requires a process that uses up all the CPU time. Not worth it.

Also as suggested above, you can not tell if a session hit a TOO MANY 
Session error and is hung up.

We have found that a CGI interface with a 16 user license can handle 
150,000+ requests a day on a Linux system.  That was a random day I just 
checked.  So don't discount the robust nature of what filePro can do.  
None of these are for a users logged in and doing direct data entry.

Nancy

-- 
Nancy Palmquist         MOS & filePro Training Available
Virtual Software Systems    Web Based Training and Consulting
PHONE: (412) 835-9417           Web site:  http://www.vss3.com