HELP!
Is your company a victim of Bentley‘s software licensing policies?
We used to be happy with the SELECT subscription‘s TrustLicensing program until about two and a half years ago when we learned about the„bucket method“ of license usage (see attached file „What is usage and how is it calculated.pdf“ in zip) and what itmeant for us.
At this time, two and a half years ago and ever since,Bentley has repeatedly demanded that we buy more licenses since our „buckets“ haveoverflowed. Since we felt that we werenot using the software that much, we examinedthe records stored on the SELECTserver user login to see what the actual usagewas. We looked at every new record for aday, each of which meant that a license was being pulled out of the pool, andits Stop Time to see how many licenses were being used at the same time. We found out that we were only using thelicenses we had bought and paid SELECT subscription fees for. Attached is a study for one day („Efla - Application Usage By Hour -27-05-2013.xlsx“ in zip), one of many we have reviewed.
We own 10 PowerDraft licenses (also 10 MicroStation, 2InRoads, 1 Geopack and 1 Bentley Building Mechanical Systems license) and forthis particular day we only used a maximum of 10 licenses simultaneously.
Alas, Bentley doesnot allow us to use our licenses in this way! Instead, they count the licenses being used „within the hour“ so theycount 16 licenses being used on this particular day instead of 10. So if someone uses a license in such a waythat use starts one minute before the hour or ends one minute after the hour,12-14% of the license working day is lost. If someone uses a license for 10 minutes and use happens to straddle thehour, 21-24% of the license working day is lost. And this might happen more than once per day.
For this Bentley is asking for 17% of the cost of a licenseas a SELECT subscription fee, which is more than most other vendors ask for(10-15%) for similar or better services.
Why are we not allowed to use every license we havepurchased every second? In our caseBentley wants us to own MORE than 10licenses so we can use 10 licenses without overfilling the „buckets“. That is a hefty overhead they want us to pay. Bentley‘s Trust Licensing has gotten a wholenew sinister meaning.
Is it only us? Haveyou looked at your true usage for your overflowing „buckets“ (or your peaks)? Have you had to pay for more licenses inorder to keep the „buckets“ from overflowing even though your true usage hasbeen much less? Please share yourexperiences. What is your „bucket“ usagevs. the true usage? Our max is 16 vs. 10. For this Bentley wants us to suffer, i.e. forthe way we use our licenses.
We don‘t think it‘s fair that you can‘t use yourlicenses every second of the working day in any way you like without paying a premiumfor extra licenses that you don‘t use. Every other vendor we know of allows you to use your licenses everysecond of the day.
There is a very good Understanding, Monitoring and Managing Usage blog article related to this that was posted recently and is very much worth reading.
Unknown said: There is a very good Understanding, Monitoring and Managing Usage blog article related to this that was posted recently and is very much worth reading.
This blog appears to be just about trust licencing, and not how our licences are managed. Why is there a difference?
For some reason, I cannot add to the existing thread of the same name as my Subject.
Anyway, I exported some select series records to Excel and on my MicroStation usages, I have 28380 records. I set a filter to show only 2 Hr usages using the Bucket Method of counting. Then I set a second filter to show only 10 minutes of usage using the time stamps. I was left with 3908 records or 13% of my usages where a real usage of 10 minutes were counted as 2 hours of usage.
On my InRoads Survey, I had 22578 records. Setting the "Bucket" filter to 2 Hr usages and 10 min. of time stamp usage, left me with 3026 records or 13% of my usages where real usages of 10 minutes were counted as 2 hours of usage.
I believe that is excessive.
I also looked at hours of usage based upon real minutes vs "Bucket" hours. When I sum the total number of minutes of usage, based upon timestamps and calculate the number of hours that equals, I get a number equal to 20% of the total number of hours calculated by the Bucket Method.This was true of both products mentioned above.
Now this type of analysis is not based upon concurrent usage. But for a method of counting usage to vary so much from actual usage, it certainly suggests that either a smaller "bucket" increment makes sense or that overages that occur due to this "accounting" method might be granted a bit more leniency.
It would be nice if we could set some variable and if set, the product always attempts to check in upon start and if successful, reports the available licenses, according to its current data with a dialog box to confirm you wish to continue if an overage is likely. And a second button to list users and PC's on record as having a product open. Such a setting could allow usage even if no connection was made
Charles (Chuck) Rheault CADD Manager
MDOT State Highway Administration
To be honest I don't 'get' the bucket hours thing.
Unknown said: It would be nice if we could set some variable and if set, the product always attempts to check in upon start and if successful, reports the available licenses, according to its current data with a dialog box to confirm you wish to continue if an overage is likely. And a second button to list users and PC's on record as having a product open. Such a setting could allow usage even if no connection was made
Now this is a good idea. May stop some of the over usage if it could be implimented.
Unknown said: For some reason, I cannot add to the existing thread of the same name as my Subject.
Full disclosure, the original thread was locked temporarily, mainly because we were seeing off-topic "contributions" that are not conducive to our forums -- the decision to do that is not something that will be discussed. We have since "joined" the two threads, changed the title of the result to be more on-topic, and unlocked the thread for the express purpose of continuing the discussion in a professional manner.
Also, please be assured that we are not ignoring the constructive feedback in this thread. We appreciate your understanding (in advance) regarding this.
Unknown said: Anyway, I exported some select series records to Excel... <snip> ...It would be nice if we could set some variable and if set, the product always attempts to check in upon start and if successful, reports the available licenses, according to its current data with a dialog box to confirm you wish to continue if an overage is likely. And a second button to list users and PC's on record as having a product open. Such a setting could allow usage even if no connection was made
Anyway, I exported some select series records to Excel...
<snip>
...It would be nice if we could set some variable and if set, the product always attempts to check in upon start and if successful, reports the available licenses, according to its current data with a dialog box to confirm you wish to continue if an overage is likely. And a second button to list users and PC's on record as having a product open. Such a setting could allow usage even if no connection was made
SELECTserver is the exclusive tool that Bentley provides to calculate and report usage. As a technology it is representative of the SELECT Agreement and its associated entitlements. The use of other methods or tools to calculate usage may provide interesting analysis - but it is only that - and that analysis is not relevant here.
As a system with built-in fault tolerance - the ability to work equally well if you are online or offline - SELECTserver cannot know all conditions in real-time. Machines can be working offline and recording usage, therefore, SELECTserver cannot know if over usage is about to occur and can offer no reliable warning. A single machine about to start a product doesn't know anything about what's happening across your network... certainly no more than SELECTserver does; there is really nothing to check.
The system is designed to report usage, first and foremost, and with this bias ensures you will always be able to run the product when you need it, whether or not a connection is possible.
Tom
Tom,
I agree with your view of the current situation. However, you will recall the old days in which our SS licensing WAS, in fact, real-time. We had our own SS app, and I don't even recall if it was web-based or not (I think it was, but it was so long ago). I also recall the kicking and screaming of several posters regarding the Bentley mandated "log transmission". And there was also a general lament at the loss of the real-time license reporting, which was countered by the trust-licensing mechanism, since in the real-time system, if you had to free up a license you had to kick someone off. But let's not pretend that real-time licensing is not possible :),
the current implementation is just one way to accomplish a licensing system which is fair to both vendor and customer. There might even be ways to improve it!
Unknown said: Tom, I agree with your view of the current situation. However, you will recall the old days in which our SS licensing WAS, in fact, real-time. We had our own SS app, and I don't even recall if it was web-based or not (I think it was, but it was so long ago). I also recall the kicking and screaming of several posters regarding the Bentley mandated "log transmission". And there was also a general lament at the loss of the real-time license reporting, which was countered by the trust-licensing mechanism, since in the real-time system, if you had to free up a license you had to kick someone off. But let's not pretend that real-time licensing is not possible :), the current implementation is just one way to accomplish a licensing system which is fair to both vendor and customer. There might even be ways to improve it!
The “old” SELECTserver was a simple server application that worked on the network it was installed on. I hesitate to call it a web app, simply because it initiated a 2 minute heartbeat with the machine using an application. If that were ever scaled up to the web, I am not sure how reliable the heartbeat would be; thus it was never designed to operate over the web.
If we were to jump back in time about 10 years when the old SELECTserver was in play, our most frequent complaint across all products was filed against SELECTserver’s heartbeat model. It had a single point of failure; the network connection to the server. Our users asked for a more fault tolerant system, thus the birth of the contemporary version of SELECTserver we have today.
One thing we have learned along the way is there does not exist a middle ground between a “capped” system and a fault tolerant system. There exists either a live connection to the server among all machines in use, or there doesn’t. The fault tolerant model ensures the end user is able to open their software and accomplish their work. You are correct that it is possible to re-create the old model, however Bentley has chosen to ensure end users are productive and not deny the ability to work which hinges on an external variable of a network connection.
Another benefit of the fault tolerant model is hosted licensing. Without a fault tolerant model, SELECTserver ONLINE, our hosted licensing option, would not be possible. The vast majority of Bentley accounts have moved from a deployed server to the hosted option; thus removing both the overhead and burden of maintaining their own SELECTserver.
-Steve
Steve,
Thanks for refreshing my (failing) memory about those old SS days. I appreciate your views and perspective on the problem. As I've stated, I like the current model better than the old (for the reasons you've given - fault tolerance, hosted server). I would not go back. I accept without hesitation the transmission of our usage logs ;) - I know Bentley has approached this problem in an even handed way and have looked at more aspects of it than I'm aware of! There might be other aspects to consider; for example, in a very large office, usage will average out more easily than in a smaller office. In a larger office, many jobs in different phases will generate different computing needs. In a small offivce, one large job might require all of the installed instances of a Bentley product to be used more frequently than normal. This suggests that it could be that some parameters in a licensing model just might be a function of firm size! Hey, just thinking out loud.
Unknown said: Bentley has chosen to ensure end users are productive and not deny the ability to work which hinges on an external variable of a network connection.
Bentley has chosen to ensure end users are productive and not deny the ability to work which hinges on an external variable of a network connection.
"] The system is designed to report usage, first and foremost, and with this bias ensures you will always be able to run the product when you need it, whether or not a connection is possible.
We had the option to run the product disconnected in the previous SS model by "checking out" a license, or we we would enter a 30 trial mode. It sounds like the focus of the current SS model is to favor the disconnect license at the expense of the connected.
I think that the current trust licensing model would work as long as Bentley takes a fair approach to it. If Bentley provides no way of real time license monitoring, they have to expect that overages will happen occasionally.
As far as I know there is no strict policy on overage usage, I mean, how many overages does it take to trigger a new license? Is there leniency based on overage time? Is there leniency based on how often the programs are used? Is the decision to push a new license entirely subjective and decided by the account manager?
My current experience to the above is that there is NO LENIENCY BASED ON OVERAGE TIME!!!! We have 3 licenses and use the program at high times 8 hours in a day total across 3 licenses and are being forced into purchasing another due to the fact of people opening the program printing and then exiting.
We have taken the steps and have assigned only certain computers and people to do any of the work in the program.
I have been told from my account manager that Bentley has now issued the policies that force them to take the heavy handed approach!!
Unknown said: My current experience to the above is that there is NO LENIENCY BASED ON OVERAGE TIME!!!! We have 3 licenses and use the program at high times 8 hours in a day total across 3 licenses and are being forced into purchasing another due to the fact of people opening the program printing and then exiting. We have taken the steps and have assigned only certain computers and people to do any of the work in the program. I have been told from my account manager that Bentley has now issued the policies that force them to take the heavy handed approach!!
If you are only printing then use Bentley View.