Monitoring Status and Flow

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Status messages are reported by both License Server Manager and the License Metering component on the site server and can be viewed through the Status Message Viewer. Recall that License Server Manager is responsible for the setup or uninstall of the software metering server as well as maintaining configuration information on the software metering server. The License Metering process thread is the real workhorse, maintaining the registered program properties, performing trend analysis and license balancing among software metering servers within the site and across SMS sites, maintaining the excluded programs list, retrieving usage information from and updating license and configuration information to the software metering servers, and summarizing usage data for the Software Metering tool.

Status Messages

Status messages generated by these two components tend to be of the start and stop variety, although the License Metering process thread does generate useful messages when licenses are low, when balancing fails for some reason, or when no more licenses are available, as shown in Figure 14-38.

Figure 14-38. Sample status messages generated by the License Metering process thread.

Each of these components also writes data to its log files if logging has been enabled on the site server. The log files for License Server Manager and the License Metering process thread are Licsvcfg.log and Licsrvc.log. Through these log files, you can more clearly follow the process threads involved with the activity of the two components. Figure 14-39 illustrates how licenses were balanced for a specific product for which the software metering server was out of licenses.

Figure 14-39. Sample License Metering log file.

On the SMS client, the Software Metering Client Agent also generates a log file, named Liccli.log, as shown in Figure 14-40. Through this file you can watch as the client agent updates the Excluded Programs list on the client, checks for callbacks, copies offline data to the software metering server, tracks product instances, grants and denies licenses, and more.

Figure 14-40. Sample Software Metering Client Agent log file.

Network Performance Considerations

Outside of the obvious network traffic involved in installing the software metering server and the Software Metering Client Agent, traffic will occur whenever the software metering server is contacted. The software metering server does not make any network connections of its own. Instead, the License Metering process thread on the site server connects to the software metering server periodically to carry out the maintenance tasks for the software metering server, as outlined earlier in this chapter in the section "Software Metering Component." And the client agent contacts the software metering server to copy usage information to it and to retrieve callbacks, licenses, excluded programs, and other configuration updates.

The amount of traffic that is generated depends on the extent to which you plan to monitor your clients. For example, if you choose to monitor just software usage in offline mode, instances of programs run at the client are periodically copied to the software metering server. Since licenses and other restrictions are not being monitored, the License Metering process thread on the site server does not need to perform license balancing. Thus, the amount of network traffic is minimized and controlled.

On the other hand, if you enable online mode by enforcing license tracking and other restrictions, the client agent will notify the software metering server each time an application is started on the client, check for licenses and callbacks periodically, grant or deny access, and so on. Also, the License Metering process thread will perform license balancing according to the schedule you configure, perform instant license balancing when licenses are unavailable on a software metering server, and so on. This corresponds to a proportionately higher amount of network traffic generated—a significant portion of which is out of your control.

One way to help minimize the amount of traffic generated is to exclude the programs that you do not need to license or track. It takes only 12 KB per excluded program to download the list to each client. Also, schedule local and intersite balancing to occur on a less frequent basis, and let SMS calculate license balancing trends for you to minimize occurrences of instant license balancing.