How to read OpenVMS License PAK certificates

[John T. Farmer]

How do you read my license PAK certificates for OpenVMS? I need to provide proof of licensing for a corporate survey. For instance, for VMS, I have a Traditional License and a Concurrent license type. I need to document how that together with Number of Units, translates into "we are licensed for X number of users". I'm looking for 128 because that's what my maintenance agreement reflects. Same for our layered products, like COBOL & Datatrive.

Thanks,

John, part-time sysadmin, full-time devloper
john dot farmer at genworth dot com

[Hoff]

Here are some LMF Reading Materials:

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/31
http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/118
http://licensing.hp.com/swl/view.slm?page=index
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/83final/BA322_90078/BA322-90078.PDF

[Steve Reece_3]

There are different license types for different hardware and different methods of licensing. These are documented in the License Units Requirements Table (a.k.a.LURT) for VAX and Alpha hardware, though it became easier with Integrity as one core requires one license unit.

Looking at the license and the LURT, you'll see that there are Availability codes on each. You match the license Availability with the hardware platform and that tells you how many units you need. If it's a capacity license then you should be ok for any number of users. If it's a concurrent use license then you'll see that the Activity line is something like ACTIVITY=CONSTANT=100 and you'll have some multiple of 100 as the number of units. Divide the number of units by the 100 and that's your number of concurrent licensed users or that software product. For a compiler, that means that that many users can be using the compiler at the same time - e.g. ten users doing CC MYPROG at the same time (not just being logged in) with 1000 units and ACTIVITY=CONSTANT=100

Steve

[John Gillings]

John,

even more complex... there are different license types for different platforms. Your Operating system PAKs are different from layered product PAKs.

For OS, look at SHOW LICENSE/CHARGE. Look for the "Type A" unit requirement. Your OPENVMS-ALPHA PAK should have at least that many units. Divide the license units by the unit requirement, and that tells you how many logins the base OS PAK allows. In theory, it should probably be 1 (also not that by a quirk of implementation a PAK with insufficient units will "work", even though it's not legal). Technically, this login is for system management purposes only. You're not supposed to use it for production work. OPENVMS-ALPHA PAKs must be bound to a specific node.

Now look at your interactive logins PAK, probably OPENVMS-ALPHA-ADL. Most likely Activity based, CONSTANT=100. Divide the units by 100, that's how many logins you get. These units may float across the cluster.

Most layered products are "availability" based. Unlimited users. You need to have as many units as the total unit requirements across the cluster.

If you can't work out what you need to know from the above, post the output of SHOW LICENSE (or mail it to me).