FilePro License Manager

Wed Aug 16 13:12:53 PDT 2017

Mark,

We all know your POV on this, but please don't call me a liar.  I know
you're big on facts and that you have been doing development a long time -
so I'm sure you have dealt with the need to manage orphaned sessions and
processes in Unix, Linux, Windows, SQL, etc.  Yes, we could argue that all
these are "poorly designed", but in reality it is a situation everyone
whould plan for.  If the user disconnects without gracefully exiting, then
the programmer must either trap for the occurrence, scan for the orphans,
or perform other periodic house-keeping.

I choose to run such a housekeeping script nightly before my backups, as it
guarantees that even users who are connected but didn't log off are
cleared.  My choice, and I need it to clean up Windows (or Unix) sessions
as much as to make sure I'm not wasting any FP licenses.  In client sites
where I need 24x7 and don't have a defined "backup window", I don't do the
nightly reset - but I've still not had problems with the license manager in
those locations.

To refer back to Richards well-stated post: " Most of the software one
purchases today comes with some sort of licensing scheme."

On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 02:48:22PM -0400, Timothy R Barr via Filepro-list
thus spoke:
> Yes, disconnected remote desktop sessions can eat some licenses.  But we
> have a nightly.bat file that restarts the license manager, GI server,
> clears open share sessions, and then runs other nightly exports and
> processes.

*cough* Poorly "designed" softwre. *cough*

> Bottom line, The license manager does not get in my way.

Well that's a lie.  You just admitted it does get in the way.  That you're
mitigating the situation with a clunky workaround doesn't change the fact
that it -is- getting in your way by default.  If it wasn't getting in your
way, you wouldn't need a 'fix'.  (And a horrible one, at that.)

I love it when people try to counter, and only prove the original point.
It's cheap amusement.

m->

Timothy R Barr, CPE, VP/CTO
Evaluator Services and Technology, Inc
1801 Oberlin Rd, Suite 204
Middletown, PA 17057
717-985-1122 x 1131
855-569-6022 (Tollfree Middletown)
855-500-6022 (Tollfree Fax)
tim.barr at evalsvs.com

On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 4:01 PM, Timothy R Barr <tim.barr at evalsvs.com>
wrote:

> First, when you order DEV and RT licenses, add the counts together to get
> the number of licenses for the right side of the developer menu.  5 Dev +
> 15 RT = 20 total users, 5 of whom can also do development.
>
> rclerk/rreport = dclerk/dreport for license purposes.  the r* version use
> the tok tables for faster load time at execution.
>
> You can nest *clerk or *rreport from inside a filepro processing table as
> much as you want and it will use one license.  We do this all the time.
>
> If you open 3-5 windows for development or runtime, each opened from
> scratch (i.e., not from an already open filepro execution), then I believe
> they count as separate sessions.
> We have based our license purchases on this assumption.  However, I am
> going to experiment with building a "concurrent session launcher" that I
> could share.
>
> PS.  As we upgrade to each new version, we have not had to re-write code
> (unless we wanted to use newly added features).
>
> Timothy R Barr, CPE, VP/CTO
> Evaluator Services and Technology, Inc
> 1801 Oberlin Rd, Suite 204
> Middletown, PA 17057
> 717-985-1122 <(717)%20985-1122> x 1131
> 855-569-6022 <(855)%20569-6022> (Tollfree Middletown)
> 855-500-6022 <(855)%20500-6022> (Tollfree Fax)
> tim.barr at evalsvs.com
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 3:35 PM, Mike Fedkiw <mfedkiwfp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I can't even remember exactly how many developer/user sessions I
>> purchased but I'm sure It's somewhere around 5 developer and maybe 15 user
>> run-time or whatever they're called.
>>
>> My biggest problem with upgrading is lack of information to understand
>> exactly how my licenses are determined, if you know I'd be interested in
>> knowing how the following things would affect my licensing?
>>
>> To start with, I've never used rclerk or rreport for anything, all I ever
>> use is declerk and dereport. I also do  system commands containing dclerk
>> or dreport  from within programs all over the place. Depending on what you
>> happen to be doing, at times you can be four, five or more deep into system
>> dclerk commands. I also commonly have 3-5 windows open when working on
>> writing or modifying processing tables.
>>
>> Do you know and can you explain how doing things like I laid out affect
>> my licensing count? I've never seen any documentation that explained this
>> very clearly.
>>
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 8/16/2017 2:48 PM, Timothy R Barr via Filepro-list wrote:
>>
>>> Richard,
>>> I agree - and have also wondered why there is so much fear of the license
>>> manager.
>>> Although I didn't live down the street from SCC, I've used the product
>>> since the Model II floppy version of Profile.  They custom wrote "special
>>> forms" and "math 64" for us back in the 80's.
>>>
>>> Anyway, all our new installs have been Windows-based and license-manager
>>> enabled since Y2K. I have had no problems with the license manager, with
>>> up
>>> to 160 "sessions".
>>> Yes, disconnected remote desktop sessions can eat some licenses.  But we
>>> have a nightly.bat file that restarts the license manager, GI server,
>>> clears open share sessions, and then runs other nightly exports and
>>> processes.
>>>
>>> Our typical install includes enough PrintWizard licenses for each user
>>> (pc
>>> or remote session + 2 for the server).  We order a 5 user Dev which seems
>>> to be enough for us to support each client.  On top of the 5 Runtimes
>>> (RTs)
>>> that come with the dev license, we add enough RTs for the number of
>>> "sessions" we expect to need.  Spending an extra $145 for each power user
>>> is cheap in the scope of things.
>>>
>>> Now we do also use Filepro GI (for speed, html/image embedding, etc).
>>> Many
>>> of our clients will have fewer GI client licenses than total RTs.  But
>>> even
>>> if a county wants all GI-enabled sessions, we just add another $345 to
>>> the
>>> price per session. ($145+$200)
>>>
>>>
>>> Now about sessions vs users,  I think there is an important fact that
>>> many
>>> may not know....
>>>
>>> When you launch an rclerk (or rreport) from inside an existing processing
>>> table, it does NOT count against your licenses.
>>>
>>> We have features in our program that will stand on a file and then
>>> launch a
>>> "sub-session"  to another file.  Usually we do this in a way that the
>>> main
>>> program waits for the subprogram to finish.  However, I believe I have a
>>> way to launch multiple independent rclerks from a host rclerk by
>>> launching
>>> the Windows "Start" command using "system".
>>>
>>> We already have a "login" filepro file that validates the user, counts
>>> their personal sessions (so we can keep printwizard jobs separate), sets
>>> their default environment, and finally sets and launches their specific
>>> "home menu".  Power users get a different menu than data entry vs
>>> view-only.  This process ends with creating a batch file which in turn
>>> contains "START p.exe menuname".
>>>
>>> I've been wanting to do some more testing before weighing in - but
>>> decided
>>> not to wait anymore.
>>>
>>> Bottom line, The license manager does not get in my way.
>>> And if I'm right about using START from inside an rclerk to launch
>>> multiple
>>> rclerks - I won't even need a "session count" anymore - just users.
>>>
>>>
>>> Timothy R Barr, CPE, VP/CTO
>>> Evaluator Services and Technology, Inc
>>> 1801 Oberlin Rd, Suite 204
>>> Middletown, PA 17057
>>> 717-985-1122 x 1131
>>> 855-569-6022 (Tollfree Middletown)
>>> 855-500-6022 (Tollfree Fax)
>>> tim.barr at evalsvs.com
>>> -------------- next part --------------
>>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>>> URL: <http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/filepro-list/attachm
>>> ents/20170816/a4e75d16/attachment.html>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Filepro-list mailing list
>>> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
>>> Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Subscription Changes
>>> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
>>>
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/filepro-list/attachments/20170816/719897a0/attachment.html>