Licensing issue due to incorrect IP detection

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

I have a small (so far since we only use this in test atm) issue with PMP and licensing.

Actually it is an error in SIM itself from what I believe, and it comes from incorrect detection of servers with multiple IP adresses, for example Veritas clusters.
And no, the latest SMH update does not solve this issue.

Anyway, what happens is that let's say I have a 6-node Veritas cluster running SQL Server, with 6 instances. One instance on each node.
The point of this is that in case one node fails the SQL server database instance can then fail over to another node. This cluster is not in anyway connected to SIM except that I want SIM to manage the hardware just as with any other server I have.

So, each node has its own IP adress, and in addition they have the IP adress to the SQL instance. That makes 2 IP adresses per server.
Now I set up PMP before SQL was installed, so I licensed the physical server A on IP adress 1, but when the SQL instance is running SIM will find server A on IP 2. (I have tried IP binding in the SMH to adress 1 with no success)

First of all this will result in SIM not correctly identifying the server as it finds the machine on the wrong adress. This is just an issue in detection, but could be ever so troublesome since the adress it finds could then fail over to another node (and frequently does, when we do maintenance on one node and run the instance on another).

However except for that issue there's also a licensing problem, since I licensed server A on IP 1, but now server A is detected as IP 2 (even if IP 1 is still responding). This makes the server unlicensed and I need to use another license for it and I cannot revoke the already used one (which I don't want to do since its the proper IP for the server).
So I need two licenses for one server.

Now in case of problems or maintenance, I may want to fail over the other instances to the node, and in a 6-node cluster the possible combinations are then 7 IP adresses (1 physical + 6 virtual) on 6 machines = 42 IP adress combinations. Meaning 42 licenses for 6 servers.

So what I'd like to know is if there is any way to make SIM aware of Veritas clusters in the same way that it automatically finds MSCS clusters on any server where installed and correctly binds that information to the right name and adress ?

(OS'es where seen are Windows 2000 SP4, Windows 2003 RTM or Windows 2003 SP1, with Veritas cluster 2.0 and Veritas Foundation 4.2 or 4.3)

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Ok, this one's now sent in as a support case.