Rational License Key Server Administration and Reporting Tool Usage

Authors: TingHuiLi, SuperWang
Build basis: IBM Software Delivery and Lifecycle Patterns, version 1.0.1.

Introduction

Working with the deployed license server shared service, you have tools for monitoring and managing the license server shared service once it is deployed. Use the Rational License Key Server Administration and Reporting tool capability to administer license servers and generate license usage reports.

Rational License Key Server Administration and Reporting Tool

Rational License Key Server Administration and Reporting tool is a solution from IBM Rational which helps customers to administer and generate reports for the license consumed by various Rational Prod-ucts. License Server Administration will be able to control multiple Rational License servers from a single page. The Reporting feature has some out of box reports which will give a clear picture of license usage of almost all Rational Products.

Accessing Rational License Key Server Administration and Reporting Tool

1. Click Instances > Shared Services.
2. Click IBM Shared Service for Rational License Key Server 1.0.1.0 in the list. Use the filter to con-strain the list if necessary. Wait for the details to be loaded into the right pane.
3. Click the Endpoint link for the license server administration tool.
4. Click the link to log in to the tool with userId(rcladmin) and password(rcladmin)

License server administration - Adding a license server

1. After login the URL https://Hostname:4743/rcladmin/Main.jsp to start the server administration application.
2. Click Servers to open the License Server Administration home page.
3. To add a license server, click Actions > Add.
4. In the Add License Server pane, enter the server name, and select the server type. The available server types are as follows:
   • RLKS: Rational License Key Server
   • RLKS Redundant: Redundant license servers
   • CLM: Collaborative Lifecycle Management server
5. Enter the host name and test the server connection.
6. Add the server to the license server list. After you add the server to the application, the server in-formation is displayed in a table.
   • The managed license servers information.
   • The status column displays the server status; whether the license server log data is col-lected by the server agent or not.
   • The reporting column displays the reporting status

License server administration - Starting/Stopping a license server

After the license server is configured with the application, start the server if it is not running.

1. Open the License Server Administration home page.
2. Select a server from the table, and click the License Server tab. Start or stop the server from this tab. The displayed license server information is as follows:
   • The path of the license file directory
   • The server port number
   • The vendor port number
3. To start/Stop the server, click Actions > Start Server or Stop Server if the server has already been started.
4. After you start the license server, enable the server to report license usage information.
5. Select a server from the table, and click the Reporting tab. With the reporting function, you can start or stop collecting the license usage information.
6. The Reporting tab displays the server log file location and the last time when the license usage data was read and pulled into the reporting system.
7. To start the reporting function, click Actions > Start Reporting. After the reporting function starts, you can complete these administrative tasks:
   • Generate a report that is based on the collected data.
   • Clean the reporting resources that are generated by the server administration agent.
   • Stop reporting: This action pauses the license usage data collection process at the server admini-stration agent.
   • Remove reporting: This action stops the log conversion process at the agent and removes all the usage data from the backend database.

License server administration - Importing a license file

After you add the server to the application, import the license file that is obtained from License Key Center.

1. Use the web client and open the License Server Administration page.
2. Select a server from the table to view the server configuration details.
3. From the Configuration pane, click the License Server tab.
4. Click Actions > Import to import an RLKS license file.
5. Click Browse and select the license file that is on your computer.
6. Click Restart License Server and click OK. The directory location of the license file is added to the server configuration details.
7. Click Served licenses tab to view the existing and imported licenses.

License usage reports - Creating a report definition

Use the web-based reporting application to create various helpful reports that are based on license server artifacts. The generated reports helps you evaluate and track license usage for the IBM® Rational® prod-ucts that are used in your organization.

1. Open the URL: https://Hostname:4743/rcladmin/Main.jsp.
2. Log in by using the login credentials that you used for adding the license server. The Reports home page opens.
3. Click Create a report definition.
4. Name the report and add a brief description of the report.
5. Specify the following parameters that are required to create a report.

• Select a license server to display the list of products that the server manages. You can select multiple servers to list more products for a report.
• Select the products from the list to be included in a report.
• Select a metric type for the report. The metric type lists the different artifacts of a license that can help you to evaluate and track the licenses of various products that are used in your organi-zation. The license usage is computed in terms of license hours. License hours are calculated based on the product that is associated with a license, and the duration for which it is used. For example a report might provide information about license hours: 1 license used for 1 hour = 1 license hour. The supported metrics are as follows:
  • Chargeback: This metric represents a simple chargeback policy for product licenses that are used in an organization. The report for this metric is like an invoice, where the number of licenses that are consumed by each user in a specified time is listed. The number of li-censes hours is multiplied by the unit costs that are associated with each license hour of that kind of license for that product. This product gives the value in currency to be charged for that user.
  • Available licenses: This metric presents the total number of licenses for a product that are available in the license files that are used to start the license server
  • Expiration: This metric presents the expiration date of a license for each of the selected products. This information is collected from the license file.
  • Peak denial: This metric represents the maximum number of license requests that were denied during the duration specified by the selected license servers for the selected prod-ucts.
  • Peak usage: This metric represents the maximum number of license requests that were granted by the selected license servers for the selected products.
  • User based: This metric presents information about the usage of a product by a user from a license server at a specified time. This list includes the user and the host server name for the selected products for the specified duration.
  • Token distribution: This chart presents the number of token licenses that are issued in the specified time for various products in an organization.
• Select the types of licenses that you have in your organization.
• Select the frequency and duration for which you want to collect data for the report.

6. Run the report before you save it.

The Reports home page:

Specify the following parameters:

Run the report and the products token license consumed is reported:

License usage reports - Running a report definition

The License Server Reporting page provides the option to generate reports that are based on the re-port definition. You can also run or edit and schedule the saved report query later.

1. Use the web client, and open the Reports home page.
2. Click Run/Edit a report definition.
3. The Reports page displays a table with a list of saved reports.
4. Run the report.
5. Save the report. A report is saved by type of metric and name.
6. Select format in which you want to export the report. A file is downloaded in the selected format at the location that is specified in your browser settings. The export formats are as follows:
   • PDF
   • XML
   • CSV
   • TSV
   • JSON

Select a Token Distribution report:

Save the report:

Select a chargeback report:

Save the report:

Related Articles

• Monitoring RLKS License usage using log files

External links:

• IBM