Chapter 3: Licenses

Overview

OpenVMS has the capability to:

• Register and load licenses.

• Display licenses.

• Unload and delete licenses.

Unlike most UNIX systems, the licensed OpenVMS operating system is bare bones (i.e., to be fully functional, additional licenses must be purchased to create a useful system). For instance, TCP/IP, programming languages, SMP, clustering, file serving, HTTPD server, disk shadowing, and Motif (X Windows) must be licensed explicitly. This scheme means that the manager only has to pay for the features that are used. So, if the machine is to be only a server and no software development is anticipated, no language license needs to be purchased. The system manager can tailor the licenses (thus, the support level and costs) to the intended use of the machine.

All OpenVMS software requires a license, except user-supported freeware. For the purpose of initializing the system, however, the system manager may run from the console without a license. License requirements vary according to the type of CPU on which its associated software will run. Requirements also vary according to the intended usage. The order number for each product licensed by Compaq is found in the software product description (SPD) of the appropriate version of OpenVMS. Specifically, to run OpenVMS on a single CPU with interactive users, two licenses must be loaded:

1. Operating System Base License, which permits one login from the console

2. OpenVMS Concurrent-Use License, specifying how many simultaneous users are permitted to log in

If the computer has multiple CPUs—that is, symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)—one more license for each additional CPU is also required:

3. Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) Base Extension

When installing additional products, the system manager must consult the product's SPD to determine what license options are available. The OpenVMS Base with a Concurrent-Use License includes the following:

• Several editors

• MAIL client

• Java language and run-time support (Alpha only)

• MACRO (assembly language) Compiler

• POSIX Threads library

• Visual Threads tool to analyze multithread applications

• Librarian utility

• Hypersort library of APIs

• Symbolic debugger for application development

• System code debugger for driver development

• Record Management System (RMS) File utilities

• Availability Manager, a tool to monitor OpenVMS nodes from a PC

• Management Station, a tool to manage certain aspects of OpenVMS from a PC

• Batch and Print queuing

• Accounting utility

• Backup utility

• Kerberos security/authentication

• Compaq Secure Web Server (CSWS), based on the Apache server

• Extensible Markup Language (XML)

• Netscape FastTrack Server

• E-business packages, such as Enterprise Directory, Reliable Transaction Router, and Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM)

But several useful tools and applications are licensed separately:

• TCP/IP

• Disk shadowing and striping (RAID 0, 1, and 5)

• Compilers

• Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)

• Clustering

• NSF (also called PATHWORKS or Advanced Server) server

• DECwindows Motif

One of the network application support (NAS) licenses should probably be loaded as well. There are several NAS licenses, and they are designed to combine commonly required networking licenses. For instance:

NAS Base Server 200 includes licenses for:

• DECwindows, Motif

• DECprint Supervisor (DCPS)

• DECnet and DECnet-Plus

• PATHWORKS

• TCP/IP Services

NAS Production Server 400 includes licenses for the above plus:

• DECforms

• DEC Distributed Queuing Service

• ACMS

• Reliable Transaction Router (RTR)

• RMS Journaling

• VMScluster Software

• Volume Shadowing

These licenses can be upgraded as well. For instance, if the manager finds that the NAS 200 does not include enough licenses, it can be upgraded to NAS 400.

The OpenVMS SPD also lists freeware that runs on OpenVMS. Here is a brief list:

• WWW browsers: Netscape and Mosaic supported by Motif. LYNX is a character cell, text-based browser.

• WWW Servers: Ohio State University supported. CERN also has one.

• perl: a scripting language used on UNIX

• GNU sed: a UNIX stream editor

• tcl: another stream editor, and tk, an X Windows system toolkit for tcl

• yacc and bison: compiler-compilers

• grep: a regular expression search engine

• News readers: ANU NEWS, VNEWS, MXRN/DXRN, NEWSRDR

• MPEG video player

• IUPOP3: an e-mail server

• Pine: an e-mail and news client

• MX: an e-mail server

• Various HTML tools to syntax check and convert HTML files

• Motif and X Windows tools and utilities

Licensing today is based on a three-tier model: enterprise, departmental, and workstation. For instance, the Alpha enterprise system class includes the following:

• DEC 4000 series

• DEC 7000 series

• DEC 10000 series

• AlphaServer 8200, Compaq AlphaServer GS60

• AlphaServer 8400, Compaq AlphaServer GS140

• Compaq AlphaServer GS160, GS320