Is TM1 concurrent licensing honour-based?

[iansdigby]

Hello fellow TM1-ers. I have two questions, any answers to which would be highly appreciated (what else can I say to justify asking for free information? I love you all! - no wait, that sounds even worse...):

1. When the number of people logged on equals the number of your licensed concurrent users (we purchased under the Applix concurrent system), would the next person who tries to log on get a message stating that the maximum has been exceeded, or is this an honour-based system?

2. If we want to add users, but do not use Contributor but only Perspectives, Architect and TM1 Web, do we have to move to a named-user system?

Thanks and Regards to all

Ian Digby

[Michel Zijlema]

1. When the number of people logged on equals the number of your licensed concurrent users (we purchased under the Applix concurrent system), would the next person who tries to log on get a message stating that the maximum has been exceeded, or is this an honour-based system?

This depends on the tm1s.lic file used. The user limit is defined in the license file. If you received a specific license file for your company with the user limit specified then you will recieve the exceed message. After the take-over, Cognos started to supply a license file without a user limit. If you're using this license file, the limit is 'honour-based'.

2. If we want to add users, but do not use Contributor but only Perspectives, Architect and TM1 Web, do we have to move to a named-user system?

Adding users could get quite costly as you have to move to the new license structure. Your concurrent users will be converted to named users (I think 1-3 ratio, but negotiable) and then you can buy additional named users.

Michel

[stephen waters]

would the next person who tries to log on get a message stating that the maximum has been exceeded, or is this an honour-based system?

2. If we want to add users, but do not use Contributor but only Perspectives, Architect and TM1 Web, do we have to move to a named-user system?
Ian Digby

Ian,
Michael is quite correct that if you have an "Unlimited" (actually 99,999) license key monitoring is honour based. Also, the latest release, certainly 9.5.2 (and I think 9.5.1) no longer require a license key at all.

The problem is of course that TM1 has no standard admin mechanism for telling administrators (i) how many users are accessing the system at any one time and (ii) recording the maximum number of users who have been accessing the system over a period of time!

If you do need to add new users to an exisintg concurrent RW system there may be an alternative to a migration but it depends very much on your configuration. you would need ot speak to your supplier ( partner or IBM?) to see what they would recommend.

[PlanningDev]

Just to weigh in here but I believe the licensing is a "Named User" type of license. This means that what matters is how many users you have listed in TM1 regardless of whether they use the system or not. If you have more named users in TM1 than you have in your agreement with IBM you would have an issue. This also goes for Admin vs Read/Write vs Read Only capabilities.

[tomok]

Just to weigh in here but I believe the licensing is a "Named User" type of license. This means that what matters is how many users you have listed in TM1 regardless of whether they use the system or not. If you have more named users in TM1 than you have in your agreement with IBM you would have an issue. This also goes for Admin vs Read/Write vs Read Only capabilities.

This is the new licensing scheme. However, there are plenty of customers out there that are not subject to this type of licensing because they bought TM1 under the old scheme. AFAIK, you only have to convert to the new scheme if you want to change the number of licenses.

[jim wood]

Tomok,

As the older Applix versions of the software are coming out of support IBM are looking to change all customer license agreements before offering customers upgrades. This needs to looked at on a customer by customer basis to make sure the agreement a customer has allows them to keep their current license structure.

I wouldn't presume anything.

The best advice we can give on this subject is review your support / sales contract and discuss your options with your IBM sales rep,

Jim.

[tomok]

I wouldn't presume anything.

I'm not. My response was to PlanningDev who implied that just because IBM changed their licensing agreement that everyone was now subject to those new terms, even if they have not changed how they use the software. The truth is they may not necessarily be. As long as they are paying their maintenance bills, have not altered the number of users in the system outside their sepcific limits, and IBM has not informed them that their particular licensing status has changed, they don't have to live in fear that they are not in compliance. Rest assured, if IBM wants more money out of you then you will hear about it.

[dymoy]

This might be old and incorrect info, but I seem to recall in speaking with an IBM rep over a year ago that moving from a 32 bit (which many older ones are) to a 64 bit environment would be a change in licensing that would trigger the per seat issue. This being IBM, things may have changed in the last year. Definitely talk to the IBM folks for the latest on your particular situation.

ADMIN EDIT : Removed rep comments on unreleased products as it may have been a confidential disclosure

[jim wood]

I think your right. They treat the 32-bit and 64-bit as different products so moving from to the other is not part of the product support agreement.