That's exactly right: "since its customers, the Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), would actually sell fewer software licenses under this model". The Flexlm customers are the ISVs and not the ISVs' customers, Flexlm = Flexible License Manager for the ISVs, for their applications and not for the users of those applications.
*/David* On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 6:06 PM, Gary Brown <[email protected]>wrote: > Three years ago I tried to work with Flexera Software (FlexLM) to > resolve race conditions that arose between a scheduler and FlexLM because > the FlexLM license manager was also serving licenses to external users; > i.e., the scheduler was not the only one trying to obtain licenses. > I proposed a "reservation/commit" model similar to that used by the credit > card industry to handle charges where a retail establishment will obtain an > "authorization" for a specific amount, which the credit card system > "reserves" against a customer's credit limit, and then when the retail > establishment "settles" the charge, the reserved amount is actually added > to the customer's credit card balance and the "authorization" deleted. > This would properly handle the situation where a scheduler "reserves" > licenses through FlexLM and the a running job actually "checks out" the > reserved licenses. > Despite the company and product names, Flexera was completely inflexible > and would not do anything in this direction since its customers, the > Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), would actually sell fewer software > licenses under this model, which is what users actually want, and > Flexera's customers would take a very dim view of Flexera if it implemented > this model. No logic (cloud model also needs this), cajoling, or begging > would get Flexera to budge. > I do not know if Flexera has done anything to resolve the issue of race > conditions between when a scheduler tries to schedule licenses and when a > job actually checks the licenses out during which interval an external user > checks out licenses unbeknownst to the scheduler, but I suspect they have > done nothing. > If anyone hears of anything different, I, for one, would be happy to know. > > Gary D. Brown > > On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 8:38 AM, David Bigagli <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Indeed currently there is no integration between Flexlm and SLURM, but >> some ideas are being passed around what to do about it. I am one of the >> original designers and developers of Platform License Scheduler. >> >> The item 1) you mentioned is certainly the first step but consider even >> that may not be easy, just imagine an electronic design application that is >> running in the cluster and jobs checking in and out hundreds of features >> per second. It is important to choose which features has to be managed by >> the scheduler and it has to be 'well behaved' one, meaning the behavior of >> the application from license perspective has to be well know. One of the >> difficulties is to understand how the application uses the licenses as you >> observed in item 2). >> >> The only way to get license information out of Flexlm is indeed lmstat, >> which could be quite slow if the license servers and handling many >> applications there is no other supported interface, a possible alternative >> could be parsing the lmgrd log file. >> >> >> */David* >> >> >> On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Hongjia Cao <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> I don't think there is integration with FlexLM in SLURM. There is a >>> simple license management in SLURM by counting the licenses used. >>> >>> I am also considering the interaction between SLURM and FlexLM, but I >>> have no good result yet. The difficulty is that FlexLM has no open API >>> (except for a command line tool lmutil). And the function provided by >>> FlexLM is not enough for SLURM to totally controlling the licenses. For >>> now, I think the following issues should be addressed: >>> >>> 1. Keep the license count in SLURM consistent with FlexLM. There may be >>> applications run out of SLURM which may check out licenses. And a job >>> may request wrong number of licenses (intentionally or unintentionally). >>> >>> 2. Force a job to release the licenses on job termination, even if there >>> are job processes not killed. With LS-DYNA I have run into the case that >>> after the application completes, the licenses will not be released until >>> a long time period (even with out job processes left). LS-DYNA is not >>> using FlexLM for license control and I am not sure whether this could >>> happen for FlexLM managed applications. >>> >>> To handle various applications and the licenses managers, a license >>> plug-in should be introduced. But the interface of the plug-in is not >>> clear yet. >>> >>> I'd like to know if anyone has experiences with SLURM integration with >>> FlexLM or other license managers. Any requirements or considerations >>> would also be welcomed. >>> >>> >>> 在 2013-07-01一的 17:17 -0700，Eva Hocks写道： >>> > >>> > >>> > The documentation announced the integration since 2.4. I am running >>> > slurm 2.4.3. >>> > >>> > Could anyone please point me to where I can find how to onfigure the >>> > FlexLM license manager integration with slurm? >>> > >>> > >>> > Thanks >>> > Eva >>> >>> >> >
