Retrieval of license usage (deprecated)

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You use the GET operation on the api/sam/license_usages element to request information about license usage reported by your computer systems.

Important: This REST API is planned to be entirely substituted with api/sam/v2/license_usage and api/sam/v2/license_usage_per_server REST API. If you have custom tools or internal processes that are based on api/sam/license_usages REST API, it is best to adjust the tools to use the new version of the API. For information, see: Mapping functions of the license_usages REST API.

Before you begin

9.2.34 Starting from application update 9.2.34, this REST API is disabled by default. To enable it, change the value of the expose_deprecated_api parameter on the Advanced Server Settings panel to true. For more information, see: Advanced server settings.

Important: Deprecated REST APIs are going to be removed at the end of 2024. After that period, these REST APIs are going to be unsupported. Switch to version 2 of the REST APIs as soon as convenient.

Resource URL

This API retrieves peak license usage over the last 90 days. PVU and RVU full capacity and subcapacity license usage is retrieved only on the host computer system level. To retrieve information about license usage reported by your computer systems, use the following URL: 
https://hostname:port/api/sam/license_usages
Important:
  • To use this API, you must be assigned to the All Computers group and have the View License Metrics permission.
  • This API retrieves data for the last 90 days, until the last successful import.
  • By default, the data retrieves is sorted by computer_system_id, software_title_id, and metric_name columns.

Resource information

Table 1. Resource information
Operation details Description
Purpose Returns information about license usage
HTTP method GET
Resource URI https://server_host_name:port_number/api/sam/license_usages
URL link relation n/a
URI query parameters For a list of applicable query parameters, see: Query parameters.
Request headers
Accept-Language (optional)
  • Use: Used to negotiate the language of the response. If this header is not specified, the content is returned in the server language.
  • Values: en-US (only English is supported)
Token
  • Use: Used to authenticate REST API requests. The header is required when you set the value of the api_token_in_url_enabled parameter to false. Otherwise, you can specify the token in the request header or in the URL. For more information, see: Authenticating REST API requests.
  • Values: an alphanumeric string that is generated in License Metric Tool
Request payload n/a
Request Content-Type
  • application/json
Response headers
Content-Type
  • Use: Specifies the content type of the response.
  • Values: application/json
Content-Language
  • Use: Specifies the language of the response content. If this header is not specified, the content is returned in the server language.
  • Values: en-US, …
Import-Mode
  • Use: Specifies the data import status.
  • Values: none, idle, running, pending
Import-Progress
  • Use: Specifies the percentage progress of a data import.
  • Values: A percentage value, for example 59.
Import-Last-Status
  • Specifies the status of the last data import.
  • successful, failed
Import-Last-Success-Time
  • Use: Specifies the time of the last successful data import.
  • Values: Date, for example 2014-06-18T04:00:29Z.
Response payload License Usages element
Response Content-Type
  • application/json
Normal HTTP response codes
  • 200 – OK
Error HTTP response codes
  • 500 – “Bad Request” if a query parameter contains errors or is missing

Message body includes an error message with details.

Query parameters

You can use query parameters to narrow down the results of your search. The following table presents query parameters that you can use for the api/sam/license_usages element.
Table 2. Query parameters for retrieving license usage
Parameter Description Required Value
columns[] Specify which columns to retrieve. If you do not specify this parameter, a set of default columns is retrieved. Example:
Retrieve the name and version columns:
URL?columns[]=name&columns[]=version
 No String
order Specify how to sort the returned data. The default direction for sorting columns is ascending. If you want to specify a descending sort, append desc to the column name. Example:
Order by peak license usage descending:
URL?order[]=peak_value desc
 No String
limit Specify the number of rows to retrieve. If you omit this parameter, all rows are retrieved. No Numeric
offset Specify the number of rows to skip for retrieving results. You can use it together with the limit parameter to paginate results. Example:
Retrieve 50 records starting after record 150:
URL?limit=50&offset=150
 No Numeric
criteria Retrieve records which match specific conditions. The parameter should have the following structure, written on one line: 
<criteria> ::= <left-brace> <boolean-operator><colon> <left-bracket> 
<criterion> [{ <comma> <criterion> }...] <right-bracket> <right-brace>

<boolean-operator> ::= "and" | "or"
<criterion> ::= <criteria> | <left-bracket> <column> <comma> <operator> <comma> <value> <right-bracket>
<column> ::= <json-string>
<operator> ::= <json-string>
<value> 	::= <json-array> | <json-string> | <json-numver> | <json-null>

For more information about operators, see Common connectors and operators.

Example: Retrieve license usage for software whose publisher name contains "IBM":
URL?criteria={ "and": [ ["publisher_name", "contains", "IBM"]]}

Example HTTP conversation

Request
GET https://server_host_name:port_number/api/sam/license_usages
Request header
Accept: application/json 
Accept-Language: en-US
Token: <token>
Response header
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Language: en-US
The above response header may be followed by different entries, depending on the current status of the data import which is represented by Import-Mode. To understand the returned values, see the following definitions:
  • none - a data import has never been initiated
  • idle - no data imports are currently running
  • running - a data import is in progress
  • pending - an action performed in the user interface requires a data import to be started for the change to take effect
If a data import has never been initiated:
Import-Mode: none
If a data import is in progress:
Import-Mode: running
Import-Progress: 41
If a data import is not running:
Import-Mode: idle/pending
Import-Last-Status: successful
Import-Last-Success-Time: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 12:18:29 GMT
Response body (JSON)
If a particular entry is hidden by default, it is not retrieved by using the general URL. To retrieve such data, you must use query parameters to specify the name of the hidden column. For example, you can retrieve the software_title_dimension.name column by using the columns[] parameter: 
URL?columns[]=software_title_dimension.name
{
"software_title_id": 36181,
"metric_name": "RVU_FULL_CAP",
"computer_system_id": 4,
"peak_value": 1,
"peak_date": "2014-04-14",
"peak_time": "2014-04-14T13:05:10Z",
"reporting_period_start_date": "2014-04-01",
"reporting_period_end_date": "2014-04-30",
"software_title_dimension":   //hidden by default 
   {
   "name": "BigFix Protection",
   "guid": "d78048cf-842b-44e8-8036-e7e2bf8afb31",
   "publisher_name": "IBM",
   "publisher_guid": "8a759f0c-b91a-4d7d-8c4a-a9d85e06c13d" 
   }
}