OpenLM is deeply committed to delivering solutions that monitor the demand for licenses within the organizations’ network and taking action to better utilize their valuable engineering software licenses. Our customers using the Active Agent extension already experience the benefits of a high-quality license monitoring and management solution that automatically identifies idle open sessions and safely releases licenses to more effectively utilize AutoCAD, Matlab, Solidworks, and ArcGIS licenses. We are happy to announce that, starting today, OpenLM customers can improve their organization’s productivity by automatically saving the work of an engineer and closing idling sessions in the popular engineering software Dassault Systèmes’ CATIA.
Automatically release CATIA licenses when software is idling
The CATIA Save & Close functionality is unique to OpenLM and once again reinforces OpenLM’s commitment to network licensing optimization in the engineering market. We are aware of how hard it is to effectively manage a lean engineering licensing environment; therefore, we strive to deliver solutions that remove the manual work and automate license optimization tasks. The CATIA Save & Close functionality enriches the series of functionalities offered out of the box through the latest version of OpenLM Agent, such as releasing licenses based on a threshold set by the system administrator using the EasyAdmin centralized dashboard.
Why the CATIA Save & Close functionality is so special
Contrary to the other engineering software that already supports the automatic Save & Close functionality, the Dassault Systèmes application opens up a completely new chapter at OpenLM. While ESRI, Matlab, Solidworks, and Autodesk have an API that has allowed our developers to trigger the safe closure of the software, the CATIA software doesn’t have such a programming interface. As a result, the CATIA Save & Close functionality demonstrates our development efforts in overcoming the main challenge, which was how to deliver the Save & Close functionality loved by our customers in an application that doesn’t have an API for implementing such remote actions orchestrated through the OpenLM Agent. With the feature now available to all our customers, we can now share the secret: we have pushed the Agent’s capabilities beyond its limitations, while keeping your privacy and security in mind.
How it works
To stretch CATIA network licenses to their limits and adapt their usage to demand from engineers, system admins will need to download the latest version of the OpenLM agent and perform the same steps as they did with Autodesk, Solidworks, ESRI, and Matlab applications.
OpenLM will automatically release an idling CATIA license based on the parameters set by the system administrator, which takes into account two factors:
– usage percentage
– idle time release threshold.
These are based on the system resource threshold parameters through which admins inform the OpenLM server what they need to consider to step in via the Agent and harvest an unused CATIA license. The configurable system resource parameters are:
– processor time
– I/O data operations.
Where does the Agent save the engineer’s work?
When the OpenLM agent harvests a CATIA license, it does so by saving the engineer’s work and closing the idling application. OpenLM provides two ways to safely optimize license usage:
1) If the engineer has started working with the CATIA software but didn’t save his or her work before leaving the workstation (e.g. he or she was called into a meeting which took longer than expected), the OpenLM Agent will save the work in the user’s Documents folder with the name OpenLM extension + date stamp.
2) If the engineer has already saved his or her work before leaving his desk, the OpenLM Agent will overwrite the existing file, saving the changes made by the user before closing the CATIA software.
Enjoy!
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