Network License Access - Totally Redundant

[mark.kiker]

I have a question...

Please tell me how an individual remote office stays running in CAD or Revit if the internet connection to the license server in the home office is lost. That happens all the time. We have internet outages spread around our 10 offices about 20 times per year. We have very high corporate level of reliability, but it happens. We are not on DSL or dialup. We are heavy hitters, but we still get outages that last 30 minutes to 6 hours at a time scattered over our locations.

This impacts our ability to pull a license remotely.

See the attachment.

Here is ADSK's answer...

... the request to get a backup server code for the Reno office encase the Ontario server went down was reasonable and in alignment with what Autodesk does with other large firms. We can move forward with getting approvals for that solution if you would agree to not turn on that server unless the Ontario server went down.

The last scenario you outlined where you would have local backups at each office in addition to the backup server in Reno encase the Ontario server went down was not in alignment with what Autodesk does with all other customers therefore that solution was not supported.

What kind of setup do you have?
Have you ever lost license access due to local internet outages?

[bcgatti]

We currently have two license servers setup for our organization (East Region, West Region).

We have split our total licenses up based upon anticipated license usage for each Region (an imperfect math equation). Each user's computer does point to both of the license servers (their Regions License Server is the first option) but this is not a foolproof method - they don't always automatically seek from the second server when necessary.

This is not the best scenerio because of personnel changes, etc.., but until I saw this post, I wasn't even aware of this type of option. Based upon past experiences and feedback, I thought that AutoDesk was very much against backup license servers. I know that I would greatly prefer to have all of the licenses consolidated onto one server - much easier to manage and track.

I will be sending a similar email along to AutoDesk today.

Thanks for posting this.

[rkmcswain]

Please tell me how an individual remote office stays running in CAD or Revit if the internet connection to the license server in the home office is lost. That happens all the time. We have internet outages spread around our 10 offices about 20 times per year. We have very high corporate level of reliability, but it happens.

I'm curious about your SLA with your provider. Either they are violating it, or you (whoever entered into the contract) agreed to terms that allow them to have periodic outages.

What kind of setup do you have?

We have a server in each office, with the licenses split up evenly.
Each client machine is mapped to all LM's so that if their local LM is out, they can pull one from a remote LM.

[RobertB]

We have a server in each office, with the licenses split up evenly.
Each client machine is mapped to all LM's so that if their local LM is out, they can pull one from a remote LM.

That is how we are going to do it, although we won't be evenly split. The larger offices will have the larger share of licenses.

(We are currently on a single server license, which makes our IT Director (and me) shudder.)

[mark.kiker]

I'm curious about your SLA with your provider. Either they are violating it, or you (whoever entered into the contract) agreed to terms that allow them to have periodic outages.
.

"Allowed" is not in our SLA. The fact that it happens is reality. Once it was a wire that some worker bee knocked loose in the MPO. Once it was a flood. Once it was the phone company. Once it was the last mile provider. Once it was construction down the street... you get the picture...

[rkmcswain]

That is how we are going to do it, although we won't be evenly split. The larger offices will have the larger share of licenses.

Come to think of it, our largest office has fewer (% wise) LM users and more standalone.. That is why ours are split pretty evenly. Good point.

[NerdlingOne]

Here what we do.
We have several network license hubs that our offices connect to around the country. We have one backup server at our headquarters that is solely for emergencies. Every adskflex_license_file variable has the primary server name and the backup server name (e.g. @STLOUISLM;@BACKUPLM). All of our licenses are carefully grouped and distributed to users by department in an .OPT file for each server. We back up all of our servers' .OPT files during periodic maintenance. When a server or connection to a server goes down, we bring the backup on-line with a pool of license and read the appropriate .OPT. If it doesn't get a license from the primary it points to the backup.

[nweeks]

I realize this thread is fairly old, but the problems mentioned seem no closer to having a positive resolution today than when originally posted. Today we are dealing with a remote office unable to connect to the license server, and while I am not suggesting the issue is with flexlm, it is certainly not doing anything to mitigate the problem.

Having experienced Bentley's trust licensing - which allows critical work to take precedence over authenticating licenses - I know there are better ways for Autodesk to protect their interests while working in the interests of their customers. I think it will take a significant number of small to medium users to confront and convince Autodesk to improve its licensing - sounds like they provide custom solutions to help the larger users - which leaves the rest of use hoping for something to trickle down.

[j_follett_88]

This is a stab in the dark but can you have it pull from multiple pools? if so, you can have localized pools within the offices say put them on the domain controller. now if you have multiple pools accessed you can then pull locally until you run out of licences and then pull remotely from other pools on your other sites if you need the extras.