FilePro License Manager

[Timothy R Barr]

Mike Fedkiw, Your concern is a valid one.  You need predictability as to
"exactly what will use up a license and what won't."
I can shed some more light on that for you and the group.

I did some extensive testing yesterday (on Windows Filepro 5.8.02, 50 user)
to explore how "splitting" an existing session into multiples would
behave.  In short, it creates and counts new sessions.  This does not
change the fact that nested *clerk or *report executions do *not* count
against the license.

I can also report from my testing that the license manager completely
handled my repeated launching of up to 200 *clerks and then rudely killing
them - without any need for restarting the service.  Clearly it
successfully traps the terminations and frees the count.



So here are clear license guidelines (as I have experienced them)....


1) A filepro license is per "session", not per user, device, or port.

2) Licenses are concurrent and can be shared across all users, up to the
purchased quantity.

3) The license manager will free up licenses as sessions are closed or
terminated.

4) A "session" is defined as an interactive execution of the programs.
The user can browse the menus to select between clerk, report, expand, etc
(one program at a time) - using a single license.

5) FilePro programs can be "nested" without using additional licenses.

A processing table can include "system" launches of nested dclerk/rclerk or
dreport/rreport executables without taking another session license.  In
other words, the programmer can design a system which can "jump" from one
data entry or report processing table to an entirely different filepro
file.  The parent will wait for execution of the child to complete before
continuing.
[Ex: This can be used to "jump" to another file for data entry, to
repeatedly launch a report/export, etc.  It is still better to use LOOKUP
POPUP, or CALL where possible, but there are times when you may want
complete *clerk capability]
zz="%pfprog%\fp\rclerk.exe" ; system noredraw (zz)

6) Splitting a session into multiple sessions is possible (Windows text
only), but will use a license for each session.
zz="START %pfprog%\fp\rclerk.exe" ; system noredraw (zz)

7) Development licenses include an equal number of Runtime sessions.
Therefore a 5-user Dev ($349 x 5=$1745) combined with a 15 user Runtime
($145 x 15=$2175) = 20 total sessions.  ($3920)

8) GI clients are optional and do not need to match the number of Dev+RT
licenses.
For example, the above 20-total session license could add just 10 GI
licenses ($225 x 10 = $2250) if only half the sessions were GI-based.  The
other 10 sessions can run in "text mode".

9) A quick dreport/rreport execution only uses one license and only for as
long as it runs.
This is helpful when using Filepro for data manipulation or math while
calling the filepro processing from a third-party application (e.g. Visual
Studio, cgi, etc).  In practice, a limited number of RT licenses can
support a larger number of interactive users in this case.

10) If filepro Data is stored/exported to a SQL database, no licenses are
involved in third-party queries of that SQL table.
An update to SQL with each ESCAPE processing will maintain parallel data
allowing outside programs a "view" (to borrow a SQL-server term) of
filepro-originated data.

11) Since filepro can read SQL databases as well as write to them, the
programmer can integrate external SQL-based data into a FilePro application
using processing tables.

I could add more I suppose, but hopefully this helps.

-Tim Barr

---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Mike Fedkiw <mfedkiwfp at gmail.com>
> To: Timothy R Barr <tim.barr at evalsvs.com>, 0 Filepro List <
filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
> Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2017 22:23:26 -0400

> Subject: Re: FilePro License Manager

> And this is exactly my problem with any version that includes their
> license manager.
>
> /"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."
>
> /Apparently you're running a newer version with the license manager but
> you can't tell me how it actually handles the licensing. This is nothing
> negative towards you, I'm just back to where I started...having no clue
> to exactly what will use up a license and what won't.
>
> This is a problem because if I were looking to purchase a version with
> the licensing manager, I certainly wouldn't want to be purchasing extra
> licenses just in case. I'd need to know exactly what uses a license and
> what doesn't. Nowhere have I ever seen something that can clearly
> explain this.
>
> Mike
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