This glossary lists terms that are specific to License Statistics and license usage monitoring.

Actions

Request for license

A request made by a user to obtain a particular software license.

Borrow A type of license usage that allows a user to use a network license without being connected to the license server.
Usage

Refers to the use of a license, which means that the license is taken from a pool of available licenses.

A user can use a feature on more than one host, each getting their license from the same license server as shown below.

 


Denial  The denial of a request for a license.
Monitoring  Gathering realtime information from a particular license server about feature usage details.
Importing Gathering information from a license server log file about feature usage details.

Entities

SoftwareAn application.
Log fileOne or more ASCII text files written by a license server. 
License
License for particular software.
Feature

The definition of a software license.

The parts of a feature include:

  1. Name (for example, Windows).
  2. Version (one feature can have multiple versions, such as Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and so on).
  3. Type, which can be:
    1. Floating
    2. Node-locked
    3. Token

The following diagram shows a software feature and its parts. A feature consists of a name and has one or more versions and types associated with it.

 

The following diagram shows an example of a software feature and its parts. This feature has three different versions of the software (Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7), which each have one or more types of licensing (floating, node-locked, or token).


 

The following diagram shows features being hosted by a license server. In this example, we have two different versions of Windows, Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Note that the Windows 7 version is on two license servers, but the feature Floating under Windows 7 is on only one license server.

 

 

 


User An application or person that requests a license.
Host 

The computer on which a user is accessing a license.

A user can use a feature on more than one host, and a host can be used by more than one user, as shown below.

 


License server

Software hosting licenses for a single software vendor. A license server can be one of the following:

  • Import license server: A license server from which data was imported.
  • Realtime license server: A license server for which data were gathered through monitoring.
  • Monitored license server : Realtime license server for which license usage data is being gathered. 
  • License server group: Two or more license servers that are treated as one. 
VendorThe manufacturer of a software application using a particular license manager.
Gathering Type The license server type (Realtime or Imported).
Query Interval A value (number of minutes) specified for how often feature usage data is gathered for a monitored license server.
Linux systemRefers to Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Mac OS X and FreeBSD platforms.
Windows systemRefers to Win32 or Win64 platform.