Bundled with NetWorker for some time now has been the peripheral product, Legato License Manager (LLM). (Now normally just referred to as “License Manager”.)
If you’ve never used LLM, you may wonder what use it serves. But to do that, we first need to look at the control zone, that region of space that encompasses one or more NetWorker datazones. This might resemble the following:
Both the NetWorker Management Console (NMC) server (typically the “gst” processes) and LLM reside in the control zone – that is, they exist to service multiple datazones. However, in the same way that many sites end up running the datazone and control zone (via NMC/GST) on the same backup server, there’s nothing preventing you from using LLM to manage licenses separately to the core NetWorker services.
Making this transition is relatively straight forward, and I’ll save doing an article on that aspect unless people would like to see one – instead, I’d like to discuss the pros and cons of having licenses outside of NetWorker but still referenced by a NetWorker server.
Advantages of LLM
It’s best to first understand what LLM brings to you. I’ll use the following keys beside the advantages to let you know where they’re applicable:
- (D+) – Useful for multiple datazones.
- (1D) – Useful for single datazones.
- (M) – Marketing advantage; touted as a bonus by EMC/Legato, rarely if ever used.
So, some of the advantages are:
- (D+) Licenses may be purchased and installed in a central location.
- (D+) Licenses may be reallocated between NetWorker servers as resource requirements/capabilities change (i.e., released from one server, and snapped up by another).
- (1D/D+) License authorisation codes are tied to the LLM server, not the NetWorker server. Therefore if you’ve got an environment where you’re planning on doing some NetWorker server migrations, you can move your licenses to LLM and not have to repeatedly do host transfers.
- (M) You can buy “bulk” licenses. (E.g., 10 x 5 Client Connection Licenses). This advantage seems to be minimising the number of licenses you need to enter. While this sounds cute in theory, I think it actually adds a layer to license complexity.
- (1D/D+) Licenses reported in NMC show the exact features they are being used for – e.g., instead of showing “NetWorker Server, Network Edition/125” to indicate that the server is licensed for 125 clients, you might see “NetWorker Server, Network Edition/93” to indicate that currently there are 93 client licenses being used.
- (M) LLM is where the full version of NMC is licensed, so you only have to learn one licensing administration system.
Disadvantages of LLM
The advantages of LLM don’t come without some disadvantages too. These are:
- Not all licenses work all the time with LLM. For example, historically there has been ongoing issues with creating dedicated storage nodes in an environment using LLM. Typically it’s been necessary to add both a dedicated and a full storage node license, create the dedicated storage node devices, then delete the full storage node license. (Messy.)
- When working outside of NMC, the command line access to LLM licenses (via lgtolic) is even more esoteric and preposterous to use than nsrcap and nsradmin.
Should you use LLM?
It depends on your site. If you’re a fairly small environment, I can’t see any purpose for switching from NetWorker licensing to LLM; however, if your site has a larger number of clients and is reasonably dynamic in client allocations, LLM may give you that extra easy oversight to justify switching to it even if you’ve only got one datazone in your environment.
Alternatively, if you’re planning to transition your backup server a few times over a shorter period (e.g., migrating from current old hardware to interim hardware to full new hardware), then moving licenses out of NetWorker and into LLM may save you the hassle of getting them re-authorised at each step.
Should your LLM server be considered “production”?
If you’re using LLM, the obvious question that some will ask is – can this just be plonked on any old desktop PC? The answer is no. Well, to qualify that answer a bit – nothing prevents you from doing this except common sense. By all means have this running as a virtual machine somewhere, but it should still be considered a production machine in the same way that a backup server is a production machine: it’s part of support production rather than primary production, but it’s still production.
Hi Preston,
We’re using EBS and tried to get this for our environment (2 datazones, 250 servers) but Sun don’t support it apparently. It’s another reason we are seriously considering moving to EMC support.
Hi Gerard,
To be honest it seems crazy that Sun won’t support license manager. However, they do tend to run behind a bit on versions and patch releases so I guess it shouldn’t surprise me.
With a couple of datazones the arguments for centralised license management become more compelling. I’ve helped quite a few companies shift licensing from EBS to NetWorker and while there can be a but of hassle associated with the transition it’s quite painless overall and gives the added benefit of faster access to new releases and patches as well as better support for any non-Solaris clients you may have.
Cheers,
Preston.
I went the EBS to EMC route last year and have been overall pleased. My one gripe would be that they seem to have no intention of keeping the support discount they gave us to entice us to move over.
Support has been better than sun support though.
Joel
License manager is a bit flakey. Or rather, NetWorkers ability to pull from it is not always clean. Sometimes it works…and sometimes NetWorker has a license violation.
While one can force NetWorker to retrieve a license, that is neither easy not operationally supportable.
Lovely idea, though.
We’ve been using it for years and I enjoy the flexibility it gives. As noted above, Networker sure does have its problems with DSN licenses, I found, when doing a reconfig in a complex DDS environment.
Support seem to have a lot of issues recognising that one is using it, even when you tell them. I get the impression that not too many people are that familiar with it. The Networker server-side generated EXT-GEMS- codes, the rolling expiry of enablers etc. seems to confuse people.
I even had one engineer a couple of years ago express surprise that we still used it citing it as a performance hit.
Hi Jason,
The only “performance” hit I’ve ever really seen is the occasional need to re-apply a resource creation to give the NSR server time to pull the license from the License Manager server (and the occasional license that just won’t work).
Other than that, there’s no tangible performance issue with using License Manager, so that one sounds like a fluffy response from an engineer 🙂
Its use does seem fading a bit, but I think this comes as much as anything from a lack of useful knowledge about its advantages, even in single datazone environments.
Cheers,
Preston.
Hi Preston,
I would like to ask you if you did encounter an issue regarding licensing Networker 7.5.1 SP1? I am having a little problem with it. When i open Registration from NMC I found that a license that i inserted is with expiration date. I inserted 2 licenses which was Networker Server Edition and AutoChanger and it was enabled successfully with no expiration date, but when i went to registration and update the license manager which is the same backup server machine i found this issue with an expiration date. Can you help me or give me a light on how to solve this problem?
Thanks and have a great start of 2010 year!
Hi Erick,
Licenses that NetWorker grabs from the NMC/License Manager server are not enabled permanently on the backup server. They’re “borrowed”, effectively, from the license manager server, and periodically the backup server will check to see that it is still able to use the license/the license is still available.
So what you’re seeing is normal behaviour, and should not be an issue. (Assuming I’ve not misunderstood you in my current coffee deprived state…)
Cheers,
Preston.
Jason and Preston,
Could you explain a bit more about those codes EXT-GEMS and GLM? What those codes mean?
Thanks.
Hi Erick,
Licenses entered into the License Manager section (i.e., the main registration section in NMC or lgtolmc) will show up within NetWorker itself as “EXT-GEMS-*” license enabler types. This seems primarily the way that NetWorker reports that it is getting its licenses from an external source.
Cheers,
Preston.
Hi Preston,
Thanks for your clarifications on that issue regarding NLM. Sincerely what i don´t understand is why if i put the license directly into Registration in NMC it says that it has “No Expiration Date”, instead of an expiration date which was “borrowed” from NLM. What it will happen when it arrives the date that it expires a specific license? It will check again in NLM to see if it’s still available? Sorry for asking again the same question about licensing the Networker that to be honestly it is very complicated.
Best Regards,
Erick
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Hi Erick,
Licenses that NetWorker grabs from the NMC/License Manager server are not enabled permanently on the backup server. They’re “borrowed”, effectively, from the license manager server, and periodically the backup server will check to see that it is still able to use the license/the license is still available.
So what you’re seeing is normal behaviour, and should not be an issue. (Assuming I’ve not misunderstood you in my current coffee deprived state…)
Cheers,
Preston.
Hi Erick,
It will periodically check with the license server to confirm that it’s still valid, and rewew/update the expiry date.
Cheers,
Preston.