License on WTS

jaisejames

Well Known Member
Hello
I have been wondering how does the license works on WTS..for JDE...In the license usage application it only shows one license and I can have quite a few people log into it and use the app...

I have a 10 user license for now which gives me 17 concurrent users ( what exactly this means Never quite got a good explanation from JDE)...
With TS can I have more than 17 people logged into the system and use it....

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Jaise
 
What it means is that you are legally and ethically bound to limit the number of concurrent users to no more than 17. If you exceed that number you should purchase additional licenses from Peoplesoft.
Peoplesoft does not have effective client license control for WTS and Web. You are required to track usage yourself. Prior to the Peoplesoft acquisition JDE was performing random audits. I don't know if Peoplesoft is continuing the practice.
 
Peoplesoft is definitely picking up the audit torch. A client of mine was recently audited. In a multi-language environment many of the project team had been assigned an English profile and a 2nd language profile. This was convenient for setup so that they did not have to continually modify the user language preference. The license audit tool works by looking at transactions and counting the number of unique user id's in key files. The use of two ids by the project team left them out of compliance by 20 users. This was eventually solved by negotiation and the client agreeing to use Metaframe XP's concurrent user limits for published apps to guarantee that only the specified number of concurrent users could log in. (Their license model was for concurrent users. This would not work if your license model is for named users.)

On another note there is now a license type field in the user profile. It does not seem to be enforced yet but I suspect that they will eventually try to lock down user counts and usage by profile. Perhaps via the security server.

So outside of the legal and ethical issues, I warn you against exceeding your license count for money reasons. If you are audited and found to be over your user count you will be sent a bill and your signed contract used to collect on that bill.

Regards,
 
This license policy of deferring the management to the conscience of the customers is directly related to their (Peoplesofts) inability to create a functional license monitoring tool.
- I can tell you how many user names are setup in OneWorld.
- I can tell you how many machines have had OneWorld installed on them. *This one is useless unless you physically uninstall OneWorld with add/remove programs whenever you retire a workstation.
- I can not tell you how many concurrent users since the method is to count the number of QZDASOINITS currently running (AS/400 Enterprise Server)and divide by from 4 to 12. *These are the ODBC connections in use by a session. This is a huge variance when you are looking at from 200 to 400 workstations online.
- WTS connections count as ONE, even if you have 35 people using it!
- Even SAW (System Administration Workbench) does not give an accurate picture since a single user has from 1 to 4 entries.
Since they don't give you a properly functioning tool to police ourselves we must work under the threat of random audits. (Now I wonder what tool they use for the audit?)
I think you are better off counting heads.
Why should this be more Art (Magic oe Voodoo) than Science?

--Rant Mode = OFF--
 
Bob,

I agree that a proper license management tool is needed. Certainly there could be some sort of mechanism for concurrent user access. Of course the security server could be used but then they would have to kill pass through access (blank security server in the JDE.INI). They would also need to deal with users who did not logoff properly and hung sessions.

Remember that when the OneWorld client was originally conceived, WTS was not in the picture and the license model was therefore based on named computers. (Maybe Jon Steel a.k.a altquark could give us a history lesson. He was involved with pushing WTS to JDE at that time.)

The pessimist in me says, "which is more profitable, spending development money on a license control tool or pursuing hidden bags of money after implementation with an audit tool?" But I suspect it is just a matter of development priority.

If you are not using Metrame XP or Metaframe 1.8 with a third party utility then you have no way out-of-the-box to control the number of concurrent users of published apps. So I agree that its tough to control WTS. Before Metaframe XP came out I implemented a rudimentary concurrent user enforcement utility. It was a simple script that wrapped around oexplore.exe and was published. The script logged each launch to an Access database sitting on a file server outside of the farm. The server session and process id were part of the record so that a scheduled process on each Citrix server could periodically be run (every 15 mins) on each citrix server to remove and stale or invalid records. It worked just fine.

If your license model is based on named users then things are simple -- you may not have more user profiles then the number of named users in your F0092.

I agree, counting heads is the way to go. At the end of the day we know generally how many users are using our systems, right? If you truly have a concurrent user license then I figure you should be using Metraframe XP and use the feature to limit the number concurrent users on published apps.

Regarding the audit tool, I am not sure how you request it but I have used it at a number of larger corporate clients. It is Java-based. It connects to the system via JDBC (I think) and dumps user/transaction counts into a file which can then be analysed further. I think PSoft gives the larger clients with global licenses a copy of this tool and encourages them to police themselves. I would guess it could be gotten by any licensed OneWorld site.

Regards,
 
All,

It is my understanding that the Peoplesoft licensing model is very different than the J.D. Edwards licensing model. Peoplesoft licenses their software based on the companies revenue. This works out great for some people, and very bad for others. Eventually I think everyone will end up converting to this licensing model. I think things will be a little muddy for a while. Until then I think everyone is on the honor system.

Anyone else experienced this new licensing model?

Paul Ross
 
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