Changing ProductIDs - Configuring new sisNET ProductID since Update 5

Introducing a new sisNET ProductID

Since the early days of sisNET, there have been different sisNET flavors for different network commodities: electric, heat, gas, water, wastewater and multi-utility. Their pricings were and are related to their network types and if you can edit more than one network type at the same time. sisNET Electric, Heat, and Gas are priced the same. sisNET Water and Wastewater have another price. sisNET Multi allows you to edit more than 1 network at a time and is therefore the most expensive.

With the release of Update 5 a new ProductID has been introduced that covers all 6 old sisNET flavors, including Multi. With the new ProductID, sisNET usage will be licensed and monitored with a so-called feature-string which indicates the network “domain”. The feature string will have 3 possible settings:

• “energy” for electric, gas and heat networks,
• “water” for water and wastewater networks, and
• “multi” for use with multiple networks.

The license costs and SELECT costs of these licenses are identical to those of the corresponding old sisNET Products.

The advantage is that sisNET users who had a mix of electric, heat and gas licenses do not have to worry anymore about which license to use for any of these networks. They can all be done with the “energy” license. Similarly, sisNET users working with a mix of water and wastewater networks can now do both with the “water” license.

The distinction with the “multi” license remains, in that “energy” and “water” can handle only 1 network type at a time, whereas “multi” can handle multiple network types in the same sisNET session.

For a schematic overview see the table below:

Some notes to this:

1. The new ProductID does not apply to sisFLOW, sisVIEW or sisIMS. These products keep their existing ProductIDs.
2. Switching from the old ProductIDs to the new ID 3172 can be done only after the new product ID is in your SELECT contract. If you run sisNET with the new ProductID before that, it will be logged as overusage and you will run into a QTL.
3. The number of sisNET licenses in use at any time should not exceed the number of paid sisNET licenses. Situations where both old and new sisNET licenses can be used at the same time have to be avoided, so a switch has been implemented that can be applied to all sisNET users at a customer site in one action.
4. If you have the new ProductID in your SELECT contract and you want to start using it, the local administrator can apply the switch with help from the Bentley sisNET support desk.
5. The old ProductIDs will remain in the sisNET software until the new ProductID is in all SELECT contracts and administrators have had time to apply the switch.
6. There is no difference in functionalities or capabilities while running sisNET with the old or with the new Product IDs. These are applied to one and the same software executable.
7. Since Update 5, moving from sisNET with the old ProductIDs to the new one does not require a software upgrade. It only requires the administrator to apply the switch.

When and how to apply the new sisNET ProductID

There are 2 environment variables which control which sisNET ProductID is being reported to the Bentley licensing server:

1. SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS
   This variable indicates which sisNET flavor (commodity) is used. This variable has been in place since the first releases of sisNET CE. Usually, this variable is set in the configuration file datenbestand.siscfg.
2. SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS
   This variable is new since Update 5. If set to “1”, it switches the sisNET reporting to the new domain-based licensing (energy, water, multi). sisNET will then report as ProductID 3172 to the licensing server, together with which domain is being used. The domain being reported depends on the setting of the variable SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS.
   As long as variable SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS is not set, sisNET will report the old ProductID, set with the variable SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS.

There are a number of aspects to be aware of:

1. Before licensing ProductID 3172, you must make sure that you have it in your SELECT contract, otherwise you will create overusage which leads to a QTL. As long as you do not have it in your SELECT contract, simply do not set variable SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS and sisNET will keep logging the old sisNET Product IDs.
2. Do not set SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS to 1 if you are still working with a sisNET version older than CE Update 5.
3. Do not change the setting of the environment variable SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS after you have set SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS to 1.
4. Do not set the environment variable SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS to 3172. Always keep that environment variable set to one of the old sisNET ProductIDs.
5. You do not have to set SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS to any of the ProductIDs of sisVIEW, sisFLOW, sisIMS. There are no changes in their ProductIDs.
6. Do not use sisNET with a mix of the old and the new licensing in your environment at the same time. In other words, do not move from the old to the new licensing machine by machine or user by user, but do it for all users at the same time. This can be done by setting the environment variable SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS for all users in one action.

Two minutes after the start of a sisNET session, the name of the product which is being logged to the Bentley license server is visible in the top bar of the sisNET window. See the example screenshots below:

Where to set the environment variables SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS and SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS

The location where you set these environment variables depends on the question if you want to open DGN files with the OpenUtilities sisNET PowerPlatform capabilities or not:

1. If you want to use the OpenUtilities sisNET platform to open DGN files, and you don’t want to use a sisNET Multi license, then you have to set the SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS (and if necessary, also SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS) variables on an OS system level.
2. If you do not use the OpenUtilities sisNET platform to open DGN files, then the datenbestand.siscfg configuration file is the place to set SISNET_LICENSE_PRODUCTS (and if necessary, also SISNET_LICENSE_USE_FEATURESTRINGS).

If you set these environment variables on an OS system level, you can differentiate between Windows users, if you set the variables on user level. (See screenshot below):