Hi All, I'm just going through a painful licence data collection exercise. I have some 80 nodes registered, but not all these need to be paid for as we set up one node per application on our clusters.
Up till now I was managing this adequately with an excel spreadsheet because I just needed to keep track of separate machines:tier1 for Wintel and Tier 2 for everything else. Now, with new new licencing model I need to know how many CPUs as well and this information is not easy to get. I've "outsourced" the setting up of new nodes on non-AIX platforms to the platform support guys, and even if I manually intervened when I created new nodes, it is really easy for someone to move a node from one machine to another, or install a new CPU board and I don't get to know about it. I've looked into pushing scripts down to all my nodes and trying to run some sort of command to get the number of cpus, but this is very difficult to do. On Wintel there is a command, but only if you have the reskit installed and you can run the cscript command etc etc. There are even some boxes that I back up that I have no rights to and have never even had this sort of information. I therefore suggest that there is a requirement for 1. a data collection mechanism to return to the TSM server the number of CPUs and other relevent licencing information on a regular basis. This information should include the system serial number where this is available, or some sort of checksum based on installed equipment a-la Windows XP's anti-piracy feature where it is not. 2. This data to be stored appropriately in the database. 3. Audit lic to be updated to report licence compliance in the same terms as are required by Passport Advantage licencing. ie by number of CPUs on distinct machines. This requirement could be satisfied by simple extensions to the TSM database NODES table to hold the appropriate information. The information could be passsed at dsmc startup in the same way that the IP address is. The only difficult issue is that Intel architecture machines don't have serial numbers. THe windows XP checksum approach will work here even if it doesn't all that well on XP because we are only trying to make a unique checksum for comparison purposes. We don't care if it changes provided that it changes in the same way for all nodes that run on the machine. The checksum mechanism should also be the same for all OSes running on intel architecture so that correct licencing is available for machines logically partioned using VMware or equivalent products. I was recently involved in a backup product selection exercise and ease or difficulty of licence mangement was a huge issue amongst the admins at various levels in the organization, for several different products. At that time TSM had a big plus because managment was easy. It is no longer. Discussion? Steve Harris AIX and TSM Admin Brisbane Australia ********************************************************************** This e-mail, including any attachments sent with it, is confidential and for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). This confidentiality is not waived or lost if you receive it and you are not the intended recipient(s), or if it is transmitted/ received in error. Any unauthorised use, alteration, disclosure, distribution or review of this e-mail is prohibited. It may be subject to a statutory duty of confidentiality if it relates to health service matters. If you are not the intended recipient(s), or if you have received this e-mail in error, you are asked to immediately notify the sender by telephone or by return e-mail. You should also delete this e-mail message and destroy any hard copies produced. **********************************************************************
