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HELP! – Bentley‘s software licensing policies?

HELP!

Is your company a victim of Bentley‘s software licensing policies?

We used to be happy with the SELECT subscription‘s Trust
Licensing 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 it
meant 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“ have
overflowed.  Since we felt that we were
not using the software that much,  we examined
the records stored on the SELECTserver user login to see what the actual usage
was.  We looked at every new record for a
day, each of which meant that a license was being pulled out of the pool, and
its Stop Time to see how many licenses were being used at the same time.  We found out that we were only using the
licenses 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, 2
InRoads, 1 Geopack and 1 Bentley Building Mechanical Systems license) and for
this particular day we only used a maximum of 10 licenses simultaneously.

Alas,  Bentley does
not allow us to use our licenses in this way! 
Instead, they count the licenses being used „within the hour“ so they
count 16 licenses being used on this particular day instead of 10.  So if someone uses a license in such a way
that 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 the
hour, 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 license
as 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 have
purchased every second?  In our case
Bentley wants us to own MORE than 10
licenses 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 whole
new sinister meaning.

Is it only us?  Have
you looked at your true usage for your overflowing „buckets“ (or your peaks)?  Have you had to pay for more licenses in
order to keep the „buckets“ from overflowing even though your true usage has
been much less?  Please share your
experiences.  What is your „bucket“ usage
vs. the true usage?  Our max is 16 vs. 10.  For this Bentley wants us to suffer, i.e. for
the way we use our licenses.

We don‘t think it‘s fair that you can‘t use your
licenses every second of the working day in any way you like without paying a premium
for extra licenses that you don‘t use. 
Every other vendor we know of allows you to use your licenses every
second of the day.

Is your company a victim of Bentleys software licensing policies.zip
  • Hi,

    One thing to consider... Many programs, rather than looking at the number of computers being used in an hour, look at the number of computers that the software is installed on.  So if you want to use 5 licenses on 10 computers, you would have to un-install the software and re-install it for the next user.  That may not even be an option!  So If you have 100 employees that use the software for 5 minutes a month, you'd still have to pay for 100 seats.  

    So maybe Bentley could shorten the interval, but even at an hour it's a lot better than a lot of software.

    --Just my two cents,

    --Robert

  • Rangar and Stuart,

    One of the tenants of the Trust Licensing model is that Bentley does "forgive" relatively minor overages on license count - with no penalties (or calls from acct reps trying to sell more licenses).  This makes sense, as Bentley believes in allowing their customers access to whatever software they need - even during a crunch when overages may be more likely.  That said, I have received calls from our acct rep fairly recently, to point out what I consider minor overages (one or two, only occasionally).  He did have other reasons for contacting me, however, so maybe he was just pointing out these stats in an informational way :)

    PS-just read the article referenced by Phil - I found it a very good overview, with links to all the important subsidiary information.

  • We have the same issue - since when is a single 10 minute overage per month considered grounds for nasty letters threatening to have their "Financial Operations" department come after you to pay up for an additional full year license?

    Frankly, I think the "trust-model" is no good. Give me Autodesk's straight-forward - "hey, check against the server, you have licenses, cool, you don't, too bad" - system any day. I like to think I manage my projects well enough that I don't need to get additional 11-th hour licenses at wierd non-office hours to get my jobs done.

    This model is just lazy coding.

  • As RobertArnold points out, this licensing model is a LOT better than a Node Lock license.

    I agree with DavidG that this license cannot accurately be described as a Concurrent License. However, it is a perfectly valid license metric - Tom Anderson describes some of the benefits.

    The odd part about the Bentley license is that the division into discrete hours seems arbitrary. For example if Computer A uses a product from 1:50 - 1:55, and Computer B uses it from 2:10 - 2:20, the peak usage would be 1. Just one computer (A) uses the licenses in the 1 o'clock hour, and just one computer (B) uses the license in the 2 o'clock hour. If the same two program launch/quits happened 30 minutes earlier (1:20 - 1:25 and 1:40 - 1:50), then both would fall within the same hour, and the peak would be counted as 2 instead of 1.

    Sassafras ( http://www.sassafras.com/ ) makes a Software Asset Management product, K2/KeyServer. We implement a VERY similar license model that we call a Lease License. The only real difference is that we don't "reset" usage at each hour mark. Whenever a product has been quit, the client still holds a license for a certain duration (the lease period).

    So a Lease License in K2 with duration 1 hour would count a peak of 2 for the launches described above, regardless of where the hour boundaries fall. Looking at the original times, Computer A, when it quit the product at 1:55, would still hold a license for the lease duration of 1 hour - returning the license at 2:55. So then at 2:10 when Computer B requires a license, 2 computers hold a lease.

    This "Lease License" model can be automatically enforced using K2, to ensure the limit is never exceeded.  Also, in Nicole Thomas' post, she says "Close your Bentley applications when you are not actively using them." K2 also has an option to quit programs if they are left idle for a configurable amount of time.

    We think the Lease License is a very interesting metric which does a better job of measuring active or frequent users of a product than a Concurrent Use License does.

  • 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

    • MicroStation user since IGDS, InRoads user since TDP.
    • AutoCAD, Land Desktop and Civil 3D, off and on since 1996