Dassault Systemes License Server (DSLS) is an in-house license management tool of Dassault Systemes (3DS), developer of computer-aided design (CAD) and product lifecycle management (PLM) software including CATIA, DELMIA, ENOVIA, SIMULIA, SolidWorks, and 3DVIA.
It provides various functionalities in order to manage and optimize the usage of valuable and expensive 3DS software licenses.
DSLS is primarily based on a server-client setup.
All 3DS licensed software and applications can only be used when granted a license from DSLS.
When a user opens an application, the application communicates with DSLS and requests for a license. DSLS can grant or deny the request depending on various criteria configured in the license server.
Some of the criteria that are considered include available licenses and authorization rules.
DSLS comes with its own License Administration Tool that helps in managing and monitoring license usage, license availability, and license enrollment.
This tool has a graphic user interface for ease of use and can be standalone or installed with the license server. The standalone installation of the tool connects to the license server remotely for remote administration.
One of the main functionalities of the DSLS License Administration Tool is to configure authorization rules, which define the scope and limitations of license usage in the license server, including:
Allow
gives permission and authorization to users or groups, hosts or groups of hosts, IP ranges and IP range groups to use licenses;
Deny
prohibits users or groups, hosts or groups of hosts, IP ranges and IP range groups from using licenses;
Reserve
specifies quantity of licenses reserved for a list of users, computers or IP ranges;
Limit
specifies quantity of licenses limited for a list of users, computers or IP ranges
Setting authorization rules is very useful in efficiently optimizing the use of network and shared licenses.
The License Administration Tool also provides information on license usage from application level down to user level through the Statistics tab.
Furthermore, it provides is the capability of checking license status from DSLS without the need to request and pull out a license from the server.
Currently, the most common way of checking the license status from a 3DS client is to request for a license and then find out if the request will be granted or not.
However, the 3DS client has its own utility to check the license status. The utility has no user interface and must be executed using command prompt. It provides the following information:
- List of the declared DSLS;
- Status of the DSLS;
- Request for a license for a specific feature.
The most valuable information that the utility provides comes from the third one, i.e. request for a license for a specific feature. It provides the following information:
- License Model
- Expiration Date
- Request status
- Denial Reason
These details provide essential information for managing licenses and optimizing usage, which Open iT uses to provide centralized reports for better and more efficient license management and optimization.
Open iT® LicenseAnalyzer2020™ uses the license status utility of DSLS to collect accurate license usage and status from the license server.
Furthermore, LicenseAnalyzer2020 collects information from the log files of the license server, as well as software usage information from a wide variety of sources, to determine the true active usage of 3DS applications.
Some essential reports that LicenseAnalyzer2020 provides include:
- License Efficiency per Feature;
- License Usage per User;
- License Usage per User-Group;
- License Usage per Host;
- License Denials per User;
- License Denial Reasons;
- Real-Time Monitoring of license usage;
- Pricing Structure per Feature;
- Licensing Model per Feature;
- And many more.
Learn more about how to effectively manage 3DS applications running on DSLS in conjunction with other license managers.
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