Managing jobs that automatically attach CIs to license certificates

The Manage License Jobs console

In the Mid Tier interface, the Manage License Jobs console is divided into two parts. The top part lists the created jobs, its status, company, and job type. The bottom part displays additional information of the job like its schedules, history, and the license job that is running.

The following figure shows the Manage License Jobs console: 

 Depending on your selection for the Show Related option, the bottom half of the console shows one of the following sections:

• Schedule — Lists the schedules for the selected license job. You can create new schedules, view (and modify) details of schedules, and delete schedules. Schedules can be time-based or reconciliation-based. To manage time-based schedules, click the Time Based Schedules title. To manage the reconciliation-based schedules, click the Reconciliation Based Schedules table title.
• History— Displays the history of the selected license job. The history displays the following information about the license job:
  • The number of certificates connected to CIs.
  • The number of certificates with multiple certificates.
  • The number of software CIs that are not related to certificates.
  • The number of certificates out of compliance.
  • To view details for the license job run, select the job and click View Details.
• Running Jobs — If the select job is running, displays the status.
  
  

To create a job

1. In Mid Tier, in the navigation pane of SAM Console, select Functions > Manage License Jobs.
2. In the Manage License Jobs console below the list of license jobs, click Create.
   

3. In the Create License Job dialog box, specify the following information:

   Field	Description
   Company	This job applies to licenses for the company that you select.
   Job Name	Enter a descriptive name to identify this job.
   Job Status	Select whether the job is active or inactive.
   Job Type	Select to check license compliance with or without checking for the CIs connected to the license. To check for CIs to connect to the license, and then check license compliance, select COMPLIANCE OR ALL. To check compliance without connecting CIs, select COMPLIANCE.

4. To restrict the certificates being checked, specify the job criteria.

   Field	Description
   License Type	You can run jobs for a specific license type, such as Per Instance.
   Product catalog fields	You can specify the product manufacturer, product name, product market version, or product categorization. Important: If you specify market version in the job, but the certificate does not indicate market version, no license certificates are checked.
   DataSet Name	The field is autopopulated with the name of the production dataset.

5. To specify the licenses and CIs being checked, specify the following information:

   Field	Description
   Advanced Certificate Criteria	You can build any certificate criteria with the advanced qualification builder.
   Advanced CI Criteria	The license certificate contains connection questions that determine applicable CIs for the license. However, you can specify Advanced CI Criteria to restrict the scope of CIs that are checked. Important: Limiting the scope of CIs that are checked improves performance when running the license job.

6. To restrict the products being checked, specify the Advanced Product Criteria.
   You can build any product criteria by using the advanced product qualification builder. 
7. Click Save.

To create queries to find license certificates

1. In Mid Tier, in the Create License Job dialog box, click Advanced Certificate Qualification or Advanced CI Qualification.
   

2. In the Advanced Qualification Builder dialog box, define criteria by clicking the required buttons for operators and wildcards, and selecting the appropriate value from the Keywords and Fields list.
   For example, $User$ = 'Submitter'.

   Important

   During query building, the Fields list displays the label names of a field, which enables you to identify the fields that you want to use. However, the query must use the database name of the field for correct results. So, even though you select a label name, the system displays the database name of the field in the Qualification area.
   
   If you want to add more fields to the Fields list, see Creating and managing fields.

   The criteria that you define are displayed in the Qualification area.

3. Click Select.
   The Create License Job dialog box is displayed. The qualification that you built is displayed in the Advanced Certificate Criteria or the Advanced CI Criteria field.

To build advanced product qualifications

1. In Mid Tier, in the Create License Job dialog box, click Advanced Product Qualification.
   
2. In the Advanced Product Qualification Builder dialog box, perform the following steps:
   1. From the Manufacturer list, select an entry.
      The table becomes populated with all related products for the selected manufacturer.
   2. Select the product for which to build a qualification.
      You can select multiple rows, or you can select all the rows by clicking Select All.
3. Click Build.
   The products that you selected are displayed in the Qualification area.
4. Click Select.
   The Create License Job screen is displayed. The product qualification that you built is displayed in Advanced Product Criteria.

To manually run a job

1. In Mid Tier, in the navigation pane of SAM Console, select Functions > Manage License Jobs.
2. Select the job and click Run.
   The job runs immediately. 
   
   

To schedule a time-based license job

1. In Mid Tier, in the navigation pane of SAM Console, select Functions > Manage License Jobs.
2. Select the job and, in the bottom half of the console, click Create.
3. In the Job Schedule Information dialog box, select each day that the job should run, such as Sunday and Wednesday.
4. Select the schedule time.
5. Click Save.

To schedule a reconciliation-based license job

In the Mid Tier  interface, after you create a job, you can schedule it to run after reconciliation. Reconciliation-based jobs only check CIs that were modified after the last time the job was run.

Do the following steps:

1. In Mid Tier, in the navigation pane of SAM Console, select Functions > Manage License Jobs.
2. Select the job and, in the bottom half of the console, click Reconciliation Based Schedules.
3. Select the applicable reconciliation job, and click Relate.

To view the history of a license job

1. In Mid Tier, in the navigation pane of SAM Console, select Functions > Manage License Jobs.
2. Select the license job.

3. For Show Related, select History.
   The Run Summary table lists the summary of the license certificates for the CIs.

   Status	Description
   CIs connected to certificates	CIs successfully connected to certificates during the compliance job.
   CIs with multiple certificates	CIs that are connected to multiple certificates. A master certificate should be considered for these CIs.
   CIs without a certificate	Software product CIs that could not be allocated certificates.
   Certificates out of compliance	Related certificates that are out of compliance as a result of the detected CIs that could not be allocated to certificates.

To view the details of a running license job

1. In Mid Tier, in the Applications menu, select Asset Management > SAM Console.
2. From the Functions menu, select Job Run Details.
3. In the Certificate Search Criteria section, enter the information that is required to search for certificates.
4. Click Show Certificates.

5. Select a certificate from the search results.

   The Job Run Details page displays the following sections:

   Section name	Details
   Certificate Details	Provides a list of the certificates based on the search criteria entered. Click the appropriate option to view related details: View Compliance Details — to view the compliance information for the certificate.  View Connection Details — to view the connection information for the certificate.   Show Related Products — to view a list of the products associated with the selected certificate.
   CIs Connected and Processor Details	Based on the certificate selected from the Certificate Details list, displays a list of CIs connected to the certificate. When you click Show Processor Details, it displays the details of the processor related to the CI, if applicable. Processor details are displayed only for Per CPU Constant Based, Per CPU Multiplier Based, Per Core Constant Based, and Per Core Multiplier Based license types. If the connected CI is a virtual CI (that is, the Virtual flag on AST:ComputerSystem = Yes), the process information of the parent system is also displayed.
   Rule Details	Displays the compliance and connection rules defined for the license type of the selected certificate. Compliance Rule Details tab — lists the compliance actions Connection Rule Details tab — displays details of the compliance questions and their mapping
   Entitlements	Displays relationship types and descriptions for entitlements defined for the selected certificate. For more details on license entitlements, see Entitling-users-and-devices-for-software-license-certificates.

   Best practice
   After the license job is run, you can view the log. To view a sample log file, click Log file. We recommend that you read this log file action by action. For example, in the log file look at the Start loop action and then look at the End loop action. For more information, see Configuring-the-license-engine.