Floating licence usage by components

[a_kaliazin]

Hi

Sorry if this question was asked (and answered) before, but I could not find it in the forums.

We have a 2-seat floating licence for Intel Compiler Pro Suite, which is now converted into Intel Composer XE 2-seat licence. It goes like this:

PACKAGE ... INTEL 2011.0920 ...
COMPONENTS="ArBBL CCompL DbgL FCompL MKernL PerfPrimL ThreadBB"
OPTIONS=SUITE ck=... SIGN=...
INCREMENT ... INTEL 2011.0920 permanent 2 ...

And when you do lmstat -a it shows 2 available licences for each component:

Feature usage info:
Users of ...: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of ArBBL: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of CCompL: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of DbgL: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of FCompL: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of MKernL: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of PerfPrimL: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of ThreadBB: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)

It works fine while the users only use compilers (Fortran/C/C++)
The problem I have is with the Intel Debugger (component DbgL)
When two users launch idb, compilers stop to work, because both licences are being claimed. So it seems like the 2 floating licences are shared between all the components, instead of expected behaviour (2 licences for each component separately)
Is there something wrong with my licence or this is an intended behavior?

The latter would seem inconsistent with the promise and common sense - what if I want to use say both MKL and TBB in a program, compile and then debug it - it would fail, right?

And the use of a debugger is blocking compilation for other users - does not seem right to me.

Please help to clarify the issue,

Cheers,
Andrey

[Hubert_H_Intel]

Andrey,
Let me investigate. I'll give you an answer tomorrow morning.
Regards, Hubert.

[Hubert_H_Intel]

Andrey,
Sorry for the delay. What you describe is not the intended behavior. License check-out should happen per component, not per seat. For example, if two user check out the debugger concurrently, no one other can check a debugger out, but usage of other components such as the compiler should not be affected.
Investigation is ongoing. I'm sorry for this.
Regards, Hubert.

[Hubert_H_Intel]

Andrey,
I could verify the problem and entered a defect in our database. I don't have a workaround so far. I'm sorry.
Hubert.

[a_kaliazin]

Thanks Hubert,

Very welcome news - will wait patiently for the resolution.
Also I am very much surprised that no one yet raised this issue - it is not a recent bug, I am pretty sure - someone has mentioned this to me quite some time ago...

cheers,
Andrey

[Hubert_H_Intel]

Hi Andrey,

My defect I entered was rejected. I was informed that checking out one or more components of the Composer XE on a machine checks out the Composer license in entirety. Since the Composer is an unique product, any of the Composer components is being seen as a license count.

So for a 2-users floating license, if 2 debugger licenses are consumed by 2 different users (which means that 2 entire license counts are consumed), nobody else in the network can use the compiler.

However, the user/host group is enabled in the license which means that for a user on the same host, additional uses of a feature do not consume additional licenses. On the same computer a user can execute any of the Composer components concurrently.

I'm sorry that I cannot give a better answer.

Hubert.

[Jonathan_M_1]

Hubert,

Similar situation, but with Intel C++ Studio XE. We're trying to figure out whether to recommend integration with Visual Studio to our developers.

Would you be able to describe, for a scenario where we enable integration with VS and continue to use the microsoft compiler when (at least roughly) components will trigger license check-outs. I presume CCompW is the compiler, so not relevant.

ArBBW
CCompW
MKernW
PerfAnl
PerfPrimW
StaticAnlW
ThreadAnlGui
ThreadBB

Our concern is that we have a larger developer base than number of floating licenses, and we don't want people inadvertently consuming licenses. For most of them running standalone is not that big of a deal although it would be good for us - and for Intel sales I imagine :) - if they had access to the Intel tools from VS.

Regards,
Jon

[j_miles]

Jonathan Moore wrote:

Hubert,

Similar situation, but with Intel C++ Studio XE. We're trying to figure out whether to recommend integration with Visual Studio to our developers.

. . .

Bump. Similar situation here. Visual Studio integration is indeed a nice feature and it should be seamless in combination with floating licenses. Floating licenses does not provide any benefit (like what they are designed for) if just launching VS acquires a floating license, or even if just keeping a VTune result window/tab open! The latter could be ok, if it is at least visually clear that a license has been acquired and there is a simple way to release it (e.g. a toolbar button that with a single click closes all tool windows and thus release the license). I find that this floating license use and C++/Parallel Studio and VS integration is poorly documented and please explain it clearly once and for all. This would leave the purchasing situation clear and avoid unnecessary support effort from your side. Thanks. - Jay

[Ron_Green]

The Intel graphical tools such as VTune Amplifier XE, Inspector XE, and Advisor XE are session-based licensed. They check out a license for the user interactive session. Compiler is different - a license is checked out for each compilation and returned after. It's slightly more flexible than that for parallel builds - a 'license' is user@host so that parallel compilation can occur with just 1 license being used by that user. Libraries like MKL and IPP are even simplier - it's an installation check only, no runtime checks. I hope this clears it up. I do like the idea of having an indicator in the session-based checkouts. I'll open a feature request for that. ron

[j_miles]

Ronald W Green (Intel) wrote:

The Intel graphical tools such as VTune Amplifier XE, Inspector XE, and Advisor XE are session-based licensed. They check out a license for the user interactive session.

Thanks, Ronald. I do understand the differences in license handling now. However, I am still in doubt about what constitutes "session-based" license handling for the Visual Studio integration? Does the session (and thus license seat acquirement) start and end when VS starts and ends? Or does the session first start when actually running any of the integrated Intel tools and thus also end when all such is done (all windows/tabs closed)? In other words: Can one actually run VS after installing the Intel tools incl. the VS integration without automatically acquiring a license? Regards, - Jay

[j_miles]

Bump. Can someone please clarify the floating license acquirement with the Visual Studio integration for the session-based license handling as I asked about in my previous post?
It seems obvious when running the tools stand-alone but it is less clear (to me) for the VS integration what it takes to start and end a license seat session.

Thanks.

 - Jay