We are a small company. We own 1 license of the following products: WaterCAD, Flowmaster, Descartes, StormCAD, SewerCAD, Map, CivilStorm. There are only 4 of us in the office that use these products, and they are rarely used. In response to the 4 ways "How to Reduce Usage": 1) All 4 of us need the software on our machines. 2) The products listed above are not interchangeable. 3) We close the programs after we are done using them 4) We are aware that we only have 1 license for each of the above programs, and that going over the 1 license results in an overage.
The "Trust Licensing" policy has really been a problem for us. Since the SelectServer is unable to tell us if a license has been used or not, we never know if we will be opening a second instance of the program. We are not blocked or warned before opening the second instance. In order to avoid overages, every time we want to open one of the programs, we email all of the users in the office and ask them if we can reserve the program for a specified hour. It's a hindrance to our productivity.
We want the ability to only use only the licenses that we have purchased. When I open a dgn that is already in use, I am not able to work in that dgn. When that happens, we wait for the coworker to finish in the dgn. If I open our networked licensed AutoTurn, and the license is already used, I am not able to use the program. When that happens we wait for the license to free up. When I open a second instance of WaterCAD, I see no warning, then I get a phone call from our account manager telling me we need to purchase a second license. The result: The "Trust Licensing" policy will eventually force us to purchase software that we do not need.
With today's technology Bentley, a supposed leader in this department, should have a MUCH MORE EFFICIENT WAY TO MANAGE LICENSES. The Trust Licensing models fails in many ways and ONLY benefits the software manufacturer. They like to tell you it's a benefit, and in there own strange thought process it is. In the real world...it isn't, not at all, not even close.
I cant have two versions of Esri products open because we only have 1 license. We can't have 2 licenses of AutoCAD open because we only have 1 license. Why is it that we can have 10 (mild exaggeration) licenses of Microstation open when we only have 1 license? The way they license software is nothing short of ridiculous. I never heard of the 'wait an hour' after your partner logs out before you can log in. What? What world do you live in where that is a remotely useful scenario for anyone but the software maker. Its just a recipe for them to charge us more money, plain and simple.
We have been there, done that with "1 license equals 1 user". Way back when we did that, we heard that was simply too restrictive for users -- and not from just one organization... from many. We started providing a much better way to address the problem of "...we need more licenses, but it takes x amount of time for us to request, get approved, requisition, etc. to get those." We are helping to prevent production from being impacted simply because there aren't enough licenses use our products. Over the years, we have been on the leading edge of making licensing better and better (case-in-point is the Portfolio Balancing referenced in this and other threads). Some users have gone the route of "checking out" licenses to emulate the old-style "node locked" way, and a number of them quickly realize the administrative hassles in doing that. The bottom line is that we offer more licensing options than any other software vendor we are aware of. And we will just keep making it better.
Where do you find those settings? That sounds like exactly what we want.
Hi Roadrunner,
We are currently on the hosted Bentley Select Server. The link that I included in my last post takes me to that specific page on the hosted select server management page. I have full privileges, I do have not researched where and what Bentley privileges are needed to access this page.
To go there manually, I went to selectserver.bentley.com and then used the pull down menu--Site Configuration--Site Settings.
--Robert
Unknown said: We have been there, done that with "1 license equals 1 user". Way back when we did that, we heard that was simply too restrictive for users -- and not from just one organization... from many. We started providing a much better way to address the problem of "...we need more licenses, but it takes x amount of time for us to request, get approved, requisition, etc. to get those." We are helping to prevent production from being impacted simply because there aren't enough licenses use our products. Over the years, we have been on the leading edge of making licensing better and better (case-in-point is the Portfolio Balancing referenced in this and other threads). Some users have gone the route of "checking out" licenses to emulate the old-style "node locked" way, and a number of them quickly realize the administrative hassles in doing that. The bottom line is that we offer more licensing options than any other software vendor we are aware of. And we will just keep making it better.
Phil, thanks for your input. What you are hearing now is that the new licensing system does not work either. As far as I can tell, you are hearing it from many organizations. When I speak to my colleagues that use other CAD software, they are floored when I tell them about the troubles that we have had with Bentley licensing.
There are methods to accomplish the flexibility in licensing that would benefit users that need a license "on demand" and users like us who do not want that capability. Some methods have been proposed in this thread already. Maybe the conversation from Bentley's side should shift from "You will get what we give you." to "How can we improve the licensing system so that more users will benefit?" I'm sure that the community could come up with some good ideas if Bentley is not able to.
After a quick browse of several of your CAD competitors forums I found NO instances of anyone complaining about node locked licenses. Why is that? Because that's the way it's supposed to be done. You buy the amount of licenses you need to get the job done, if you need more you must buy more. The owners and managers have control of things this way. A novel idea that you should, at a minimum, have available as an option. It its' current state you leave it up to the end user to somehow know how many licenses are being used at any given time. The end user is not the person in charge of budgeting, software, servers, etc..
I can attest to bostr's comment about speaking to collegues about our Bentley licensing issues and the way the charge us for overuse yet give us NO way to efficiently manage it. It is, quite frankly, abysmal that this even happening. If it wasn't for your entrenchment in the DOT's we definitely wouldn't be using your software.
A strange thing happened today. One of our techs was going to open up a CAD file from one of your competitors and he got the message ' All licenses are in use' and could not open the program. He sent out a Tech-wide email asking if anyone could free up a license. A couple minutes later two techs that had the software open but not really needing it open closed the program, thus freeing up a license. What is so complicated about that scenario? Under your scenario we would be billed an overage and receive zero direct benefit. Bentley gets there $ and the end user gets penalized.
It doesn't surprise me that you haven't received a response from Bentley on the forum. As the only (AFAIK) software supplier to licence like this they see this as an advantage. To then it may be but to the users it obviously is not.
So come on Bentley please let is have your response. Why cab't the option on node locked licences be given as an option?
Similar issue with one of our customers. They have Bentley Navigator which uses Passport licensing so it is different principle as other products. As it is user based there is a issue that it shows overusage even if same user opens another program instance on the same machine. They have 5 machines and 5 licenses but for example 13.02.2014 shows usage up to 9 licenses. We have contacted Bentley and there is no answer if it is by design or if it is counted as overusage. Clearly in this case SELECT is disadvantage as pooled licensing allowed to run multiple instances on the same machine.
Still no response from Bentley on this? No surprise there! Come on Bentley talk to us.
This thread will soon be closed with no response just like the other thread. You will however, continue to be supplied a convenient invoice for your overage.
This is a case of when the going gets tough just close the thread so that they don't have to respond!!