question

Seats on a license server

Once seats are activated on a license server, they are added to a license pool. The server does not care which activation IDs the seats came from. Multiple different license codes will not make a difference. The only thing that matters is the total number of seats added to the pool by all activated license codes.

FlexSim's default flexsim.opt Options file

The default FlexSim License Server installation, as outlined in the License Server Installation Instructions, includes an Options file (flexsim.opt) to set the timeout to the minimum value of 15 minutes.

When FlexSim is licensed using concurrent network licenses, upon closing the application it communicates with the license server that a license is no longer needed. The license server can immediately increment its seat count because it knows that the seat is no longer in use on the client.

However, if FlexSim crashes, if the laptop lid is just closed while FlexSim is still open, if the client PC leaves the network while FlexSim is still open, if the computer goes to sleep while FlexSim is still open, then the license server never receives a communication that a seat is no longer needed. However, after the 15 minute timeout interval during which the server has no contact with the client PC, the server will consider the seat no longer in use and once again increment its seat count.

A client PC that can no longer communicate with the license server (left the network, etc), will lose its license after a couple of minutes, and will warn the user to save their work.

So the only way that a concurrent license could become stranded on a client PC is if the user keeps FlexSim open constantly, and the client PC never leaves the network and never sleeps.

Customizing your license file

Use of Options Files to control aspects of your license server are documented in the FlexNet Publisher 2016 License Administration Guide, Chapter 13 Managing the Options File.

Our internal experience with Options files is fairly limited, really only touching on the TIMEOUTALL option used in our default flexsim.opt Options file. However, in reading through FlexNet's documentation it is clear that Options files are a powerful configuration option for setting your license server according to your individual needs.

For instance, it appears that you could specify a maximum number of seats that could be in use by a particular group of users. I see that users can be specified by username (I assume their Windows logon name). Perhaps there is also a way to group users by IP address @Jörg Vogel? I don't see a way, but again, I have little experience with Options files.

Multiple daemons on a single server

@Jörg Vogel mentioned

I haven't tried, but you may be able to assign more license servers on a machine with different fix address ports to divide the available licenses in option files.

To my knowledge this is not possible, as any FlexSim vendor daemon will pull FlexSim licenses from the same Trusted Storage pool. So no matter if you set up multiple services (using lmtools and/or lmadmin) with multiple daemons, they will all be using the same Trusted Storage pool of licenses, so it won't make a difference.

EDIT: Perhaps multiple vendor daemons, addressed on their own ports, in combination with unique Options Files per daemon, could simplify defining groups of users. Say in the scenario of 3 groups of 3 licenses each. You set up 3 vendor daemons, each hosted on a different port (might need lmtools for this rather than lmadmin?). Each daemon has access to the same pool of 9 licenses, but you could use an Options file for each daemon that specified some max count or something. This simplifies having to define groups of users, since it depends not upon what group the user is a member, but rather which daemon you connect to...

Anyway, we'd need more info on the exact requirements to determine if this would work for client's situation.

Multiple license servers

If you set up multiple, distinct operating systems to act as license servers, each with a unique address, then they will have individual, separate pools of licenses. You could segregate which server address is given to which users in order to limit license usage. This means that each group of the company could access only the pool of licenses on the license server they have access to. License servers can be installed on Virtual Machines, so you could have 3 unique license server VMs on a single hardware server.

Conclusion

The right choice is going to depend greatly upon the exact needs of the client. Some mix of multiple license servers, multiple vendor daemons, and Options files may be able to meet the requirement.