Hi Steven,
Yes, I saw that after posting the message <g>.
However, I have had communication with David Myers about the license keys for the future with RD/z and I have a problem with their approach.
I have clipped these emails below for other customers to read:
Email #1 from David Myers
As of mid-October, Rational has changed how activation kits are distributed for all Rational products -- all keys are now distributed via the Rational license key center (LKC) on the web. There is a quick start guide included in the media which describes this change.
Here is the link to the LKC:
https://www-01.ibm.com/software/rational/support/licensing/
My reply to that email:
Thanks for that David.
BUT, why would ANY customer want to do this?
The RD/z software costs us around 4.5K PER SEAT. And then you want us to mess around and get the license keys? We don’t really “care” about license keys, per se (we ONLY install on the number of PCs that we have purchased licenses for)…this is an IBM/Rational issue as far as I am concerned NOT a customer issue.
In this facility (being a secure facility) getting ANYTHING downloaded is a severe pain in the you know where that will cause US to spend a lot of time just to do this. The PCs that RD/z will be installed on have NO external access. So, now we are into downloading on one PC, flashdriving the file, getting it scanned by our IT support folks, going to another PC etc, etc.
This, to me, is non-functional for most (if not all) customers.
I now have to re-think whether RD/z is good for here or not based on this licensing stuff. I have no idea who gets mailed the temporary password for licensing, but it sure isn’t me (who is installing it).
Regards,
Kevin
David's reply to the email above.
Hey Kevin:
First off (good news), if you have the current v7.6 media there is short cut (for the time being). If you install with the launchpad it will automatically install the activation kit for you on v7.6 installs. Unfortunately this will be changing as we update the media to comply with the new Rational rules.
This is one of the Brand-wide initiatives that all the products are moving to. I agree that for some some customers this is not an issue and this is making things more complicated ... at least in the short term until people can adjust. My understanding is that this was done in Rational for 2 reasons:
1) Consolidation of licensing channels
You probably dont know, but Rational now sells 4 types of licenses -- Authorized (activation kits), Floating (Flex LM), Term licenses (timeout after a time period), and token (license for any Rational product). It used to be that all the license types were distributed via different mechanisms --> Authorized via media pack, Floating via LKC, token via vendor, etc. For ease of communiction/documentation to our customers now EVERYTHING is going through the license key center. This probably does not matter to LEO as they only have one type, but for several customers they have to manage the different types of licensing and this should simplify the management greatly.
2) Ease of compliance
One of the big issues we have is helping customers ensure compliance with licensing. The LKC helps by tracking how many keys have been allocated, as well as who the keys are allocated to. This helps out if/when a software audit ever comes up, or for internal compliance. It also shows what products are available, to find any unused products that may be useful in the organization.
I have to agree, that the change is mucking up alot for customers in trying to understand how to get this working, but for some customers this is a needed change to simplify complex situations. The worst part is finding out who has the access to the LKC in the first place. I understand that pain you have at a secure site. Mitch (or I) should be able to help you download the key and validate/download/burn/etc it to a CD/Drive to accompany the existing install media ... equivalent to an extra CD image. The download is only a few KB. You should only need to download the key once (it is not different per user), but someone should update the LKC with who the keys have been distributed to.
Agree, this is an additional step in getting RDz distributed ... which currently sucks. If I can do anything to help ease what your going through please ask. Also, I have sent your comments to our licensing folks to make sure they understand that this is not a good thing for all customers and see what we can do to simplify in the future.
Cheers,
David Myers
Rational Developer for System/z Product Line Manager
Rational Team Concert for System/z Product Line Manager
Rational Developer for System/z (RDz) Software Engineer
My response to the email above.
Thanks for the prompt reply David.
The thing that the IBM/Rational licensing folks need to understand is that licensing compliance is mainly for the benefit of IBM. Some companies may bend that. As a law enforcement agency, we absolutely do not do that.
As far as how many license types that Rational sells…again, this is not MY problem. This is a vendor issue and not a customer issue. The harder that you make this stuff to do, the less customers want to mess with it. We have to support a 24/7 system here and these types of license claptrap, we don’t need. I will be posting this type of stuff on the RD/z forums for other customers to read. I guess that buyer beware still holds true.
Regards,
Kevin
Edited by: admin on Nov 9, 2009 1:48 PM to remove personal info.
