Managing licensing for DevOps Code ClearCase

Products in the DevOps Code ClearCase® product family implement an active-user floating-license scheme.

Product-specific licenses are used as users run programs or issue commands. If, after a certain period, no commands are used, the license can be taken by another user. Details of how this scheme controls user access to DevOps Code ClearCase are available on the clearlicense command reference page.

To configure licensing, you must select a licensing model, and then complete any required installation and configuration processes to manage licenses using the selected model.

IBM Common Licensing

IBM Common Licensing is not available to customers using ClearCase when it is provided by HCL. You can use IBM Common Licensing if ClearCase is provided by IBM.

Use IBM Common Licensing to manage licenses with IBM License Server software. For information about the version level for the IBM Common Licensing tools (such as the License Key Server) required for DevOps Code ClearCase version 11.0, use the Software product compatibility reports tool.

ClearCase version 11.0 requires these versions of the IBM licensing tools.

IBM License Server versions 9.x
IBM License Key Administrator 9.x (Windows™ only)

Note: IBM Common Licensing by FLEXlm is not supported on Linux™ S/390®, Linux on System z®, and Linux PPC platforms. On HP IA-64 platforms, ClearCase supports IBM Common Licensing on ClearCase version 7.1 and later. If IBM Common Licensing is not supported in your environment, use ClearCase Licensing.

Use the IBM License Server to administer license keys for DevOps Code ClearCase. After the IBM License Key Server has been set up, the method for managing license keys depends on the operating system where DevOps products are deployed:

IBM License Key Administrator: IBM License Server for Windows includes the License Key Administrator or LKAD client to enter or import license keys, and change license configuration on DevOps Code ClearCase clients and servers hosted on the Windows platform. LKAD is required to managing licensing on these systems.
: The IBM License Server for Linux and UNIX systems provides a set of system administration commands to manage license keys.

License entitlements are established as part of purchasing the product. For information on managing licenses and entitlements, see the IBM Common Licensing documentation:

ClearCase Licensing: ClearCase Licensing is available when using ClearCase provided by IBM or HCL.; In the ClearCase Licensing model, a set of DevOps Code ClearCase and DevOps Code ClearCase MultiSite licenses is defined in a license database file. The license database file is stored on a license server host. Each license database file defines a set of user licenses, perhaps 5, or 10, or 100. A license database file is valid only if it contains a license authorization code, obtained from IBM® or HCL or its designee. The network can have one license server host or several. Because each license server host runs a DevOps Code ClearCase server process, DevOps Code ClearCase must be installed on it.
Note: All DevOps Code ClearCase and DevOps Code ClearCase MultiSite products use the same license server. The license server is the host listed in /var/adm/clearcase/config/license_host.

My HCLSoftware (MHS) Licensing

My HCLSoftware Licensing is available when using ClearCase provided by HCL.

You must license your HCLSoftware product to get access to a full-featured version of your product for an extended duration and HCLSoftware support.

To license your product, you must configure your product to connect with an HCL-provided license server. You can begin licensing your product by accessing My HCLSoftware Portal. MHS provides software distribution and management of your purchased software products entitlement. With an easy-to-use interface, you can create deployments and allocate licenses of your product features to each deployment.

To log in to MHS, you must create your HCLSoftware ID by using the Register for HCLSoftware ID link on the Sign In page. Based on your entitlement, you can access the following features of MHS:

Downloads - Lists HCLSoftware products entitled to you to download and install.
Deployments - Allows you to create and manage your deployments. A deployment is a collection of allocated licensed features. You create deployments to separate licenses allocated to a specific environment, project, department, and so on. Each deployment has a unique ID. The deployment ID is required at the time of configuring the license information of your product.

Note: The Deployments feature is available only when you have an entitled license.

The following options are available for you to license your HCLSoftware products:

HCL Local License Server
HCL Cloud License Server

For more information, see My HCLSoftware.

Asynchronous Licensing: Asynchronous licensing is faster for the end-user in the normal case where a license is available because ClearCase does not wait for a response from the license server.