Enabling product license management

Before you can use the product, you need to define a license server, configure the master domain manager to contact it, and map the license entitlements at My HCLSoftware.

HCL Workload Automation uses a pay-per-use licensing model. Statistics of successfully completed jobs are stored on the licensing server for monitoring and compliance verification.

Users of the software will be authorized to use the software up to the allocation of entitlement you made on the server.

Before you get started, you should become familiar with the following concepts:
Permanent license
A license which expires when you have consumed all the jobs you are entitled to, with no expiration date.
Term license
A license which expires on a set date, also if you have not consumed all the jobs you are entitled to.
Additional resources

License mapping

You can assign to a device a quota or the total quantity of licenses available from one or more entitlements. Each HCL Workload Automation master domain manager can contact only one device, while multiple master domain managers can contact the same devices.

All master domain managers contacting the same device are contributing to consume the assigned quantity. A strategy to limit consumption for a specific HCL Workload Automation environment is to create a separate device for the environment and assign to it only the desired quota of the available licenses.

If you have a permanent license, ensure you map also a term license in the main environment.

Note: Assigning a license to a device is a permanent operation and cannot be undone.

High-level procedure

After installing HCL Workload Automation, perform the following steps:
  1. Log in to My HCLSoftware using the credentials provided upon purchasing HCL Workload Automation.
  2. Browse to the Deployments page.
  3. Click Add Deployment to create a new deployment.
  4. Specify a name for your deployment and select HCL Workload Automation in the pull-down menu.
  5. Click the three dots in the tile for your deployment.
  6. Select Create Deployment Key.
  7. Save the key before closing the dialog box. This key is unique to your deployment and cannot be retrieved after closing the dialog box. If you lose the key, you will have to create a new one, at which point this one will be invalidated. Specify this key when setting up the licenseRefreshToken option.
  8. Connect HCL Workload Automation to the license server by configuring the relevant global options using the optman command, for example:
    • to configure the URL address (licenseServerUrl), run: 
      optman chg lu=URL_address
    • to configure the refresh token (licenseRefreshToken), run: 
      optman chg rt=token_value
    The full list of relevant global options is as follows:
    • licenseProxyServer
    • licenseProxyServerPort
    • licenseProxyUser
    • licenseProxyPassword
    • licenseRefreshToken
    • licenseServerUrl The URL value is https://api.hcltechsw.com/.
    For more information about setting global options, see Global options - detailed description
  9. If the master domain manager cannot connect to the Internet, you can set up a proxy server to allow the master domain manager to contact the license server using the licenseProxyPassword and licenseProxyServer global options.
  10. After completing the configuration, you can check your licenses in the Subscriptions tab.

License server IDs are unique and cannot be shared.

You can change the number of license servers and the related license assignments at any time by accessing My HCLSoftware.

For more information about how licenses are tracked and how to generate a report that summarizes your monthly per-job license usage, see License computation model.

Troubleshooting

To verify the connection to the MHS server, run the following command:
curl -I https://api.hcltechsw.com

If you receive an error message stating that your job count is not being sent to the server due to a problem with the refresh token, generate a new refresh token and specify it again in the licenseRefreshToken option, as described in High-level procedure.