FlexLM HA

[cavagnaro]

Hi guys,
One of my customers would like to have HA for everything, I have found this about FlexLM:

[quote]
Setting up Redundant Servers

To set up redundant servers, you must provide the hostid for three machines to your software vendor, who will in return give you a license file with three SERVER lines. You need to make sure that each license server has lmgrd, the vendor daemon program and the license file on a local file system. (For some caveats on remote file systems, see Section 5.2, `Diskless Nodes and Remote Mounted Disks,' on page 27). You then start lmgrd on each license server.

Quorums and Redundant Servers

In a redundant server configuration, no licenses are available until there is a quorum of servers. A quorum of servers is defined as a strict majority of the servers listed in the license file, so a quorum in a three-server configuration is two. In other words, if only one server in a three server configuration is running, then no licenses will be available. As soon as two of the three servers are running and communicating with each other, then all of the licenses will be available.
[/quote]

Have anybody applied a similar configuration? Also is there any chance to configure more than one FlexLM server on Genesys applications?

Thanks for any ideas you may have

[KBS]

We tried the quorum configuration about 4-5 years ago, and ran into issues. I think we were running FlexLM 8.x at the time. I have not tried this in 9.x
If I recall, the issues with the quorum was that if you had 3 servers for the quorum, 2 would be picked  But if one of those picked became unavailable, the third one did not take the place of the unavailable server.

One solution we tried in the early days was to have a license manager on each host. The applications on that host requiring licenses connected locally. But if you have a large environment, this could get messy quickly.

I have heard of a different option where identical license files are provided for loading on different hosts, so you can specify each host in your connection parameters (separated by semicolon). But I would approach your Genesys contacts to confirm that this is an available option in your region.

[borkokrz]

I've also heard about problems with 3 redundant FlexLM servers. As KBS mentioned you can always use 2 redundant FlexLM. Most Genesys 7.x applications accept license specification in format port@host1;port@host2. Both license files should be the same (but this is not required) except hostname and volume_id/hostid.

Look for Multiple, Independent Servers Configuration in Licensing Guide.

[i]For Windows, you must specify the license server locations as a semi-colonseparated
list, for example:
server1;server2;server3
For UNIX, you must specify the license server locations as a colon- separated
list, for example:
server1:server2:server3

You can specify the license server locations via a startup command line or the
license-file application’s configuration option.
[/i]

[cavagnaro]

Thanks a lot guys, at least I know there is a solution possible. Will contact Genesys to get more info.