For basic license monitoring, however, this is a great tool.įor more advanced license usage and monitoring, I highly recommend X-Formation License Statistics.

For example, you can’t see how often and how long a certain user has checked out a floating license. This tool also provides some minimal usage history, but lacks in some areas when it comes to fine details of usage.

You can configure unlimited amount of servers and licenses, as long as they are FlexLM-based. It also has the ability to send warning emails when a license or feature is about to expire. It provides a nice graphical web-based interface to see the status of your license servers and licenses in use and expiration dates. PHPLicenseWatcher is a free PHP-based web monitoring tool for FlexLM-based licenses only. What are the differences between the 2 products? One way to accomplish this is by using a license monitoring tool such as PHPLicensewatcher or X-Formation License Statistics. If users are complaining that they can’t get a floating license because they are all in use, you need a way to justify to upper management that purchasing more licenses is a worthwhile investment.

One of the biggest challenges with these licenses is managing them. The majority of these software tools require a license server to be setup on your local network, and you purchase a number of floating licenses, or possibly you purchase a permanent license and node-lock the license to a specific user or workstation. Over the past year, I have been doing a lot of work with clients who use high-end CAD and/or EE software tools from respected vendors like Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor Graphics.

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