As Autodesk has announced many times before it is in the process of changing all its clients from floating licenses via on-perm license server to named licensing via it’s cloud license server.
Autodesk arguing that the change is beneficial for the client both technology vise and economically, to my opinion, we as users, are on the loosing side on both fields.
The new named licenses method has few drawbacks and if you are before the change, I think you should know.
- How many licenses do I need?
I have many users that uses, for example, AutoCAD only few hours a month and from the looks of it we will have to purchase about 20% extra licenses. - How can I get a usage report?
With the old, on perm, license server I could just add users to the same pool and as long as the actual usage did not exceed the number of licenses I have all was fine.
But now, after the change to the new licensing method, all my users are getting its licenses from the Autodesk Cloud License Server but what if a user has left the office? Or a user has change it role and no longer in need for the license assigned to him?
The only usage report available for me via the Autodesk Cloud License Server is a usage report that masks the user name, the first rationalization for it was that Autodesk is protecting user’s privacy but after we found that it is possible to get an unmasked report (regardless of users privacy) if we will only pay the sum of premium licensing (about 150$ per each license).
I have found that our 3rd party vendor, X-Formation, a usage reporting service, that could connect in past to the LMTool license sever has a solution for the new Autodesk Cloud License Server with the fragment of the cost (Just google it). - Software Versions.
With the old, on perm, license server I could choose when to pool a new license file and by that to control what versions are used within my site.
The general role was that we must upgrade to versions supported by any 3rd party product that we use (for example Bentley), we do not upgrade to the latest version, and that we do not upgrade a version when working of a major project.
But now, after the change to the new licensing method, the available versions is forced on us by Autodesk.
We have already upgraded few active projects and I guess we will have to upgrade some more the coming year. - Information Security.
Some of my friends are working for different companies with high security parameters, they have strict separation between the internal network and the external network (no computer has both access to company designs and to the internet).
When discussing the new Autodesk licensing method with them it looks as if they could no longer work with Autodesk products, since my bet is all of the change is financial at its core then my guess is that Autodesk will not forfeit these large client with many licenses but rather miraculously find a solution.
In addition to the above I would like to share with you the change process and the steps I needed to go through (hope it will help you with your process).
- Know your site.
Few days before the change day create a list of all your Autodesk users and what products do they use.
Since I use license statistics by x-formation it was easy to create this list based on the last six-month actual usage.
I have used two lists.
The first list will be used to create the users within the Autodesk account via an import process, the list structure is FirstName; LastName; Email and file should be saved as a CSV.
The second list (or group of lists) will be used to assign a user to an Autodesk license via an import process, the list structure will be the same as the first list. - Who is the site admin?
The Autodesk site Admin of my site is my manager as he is the information technology department manager and since I’m the CAD Admin my role within the Autodesk site is secondary admin.
When Autodesk changed our site from the old licensing method to the new licensing method they also changed / created our contracts numbers without any privileges and when the upgrade date come and while I have waited for the new options to appear in my interface under my user I first had to log into my manager Autodesk account and reassign myself the privileges as secondary admin. - How to connect each user to the new Autodesk license server.
When watching all the Autodesk tutorial on how to move users from the old license server to the new license server it was mentioned that if I have cooperate users then we can do the process together and if I do not have cooperate users then I can do the process for them.- Since I know my users, I tried to do the change process for them.
While I have opened the Autodesk user for all of my users, they had to verify the mail and set a password for themselves. - We had to start each Autodesk product and to point it to the new Autodesk cloud license server, after pointing the first product all the other product will go into an hybrid mode where the is signed in the user’s account but license is not pointed correctly.
- Since I know my users, I tried to do the change process for them.
I hope all these notes will help someone with his change process.
In case any additional help / advise is need please leave a comment.
David.
Dudi Kurtz 