Is it possible to share Simulate license with other group in same company

[KenFarley]

Creo 4.0, license server FlexNet LM version 11.17.

Currently, at our site, we have a license for the Simulate application (module?), under the "MECELITE_UI_License" and "MECELITE_ENG_License" names.

At another site, they have licenses for Creo, but not for the Simulate items above. Since we do not use the Simulate license very often, it was felt it would be more cost effective to share our licenses with the group at the other site, rather than buying yet another seldom-used license.

The problem is, although the other group is able to obtain licenses from our pool of available licenses, they are unable to run the Simulate application. It does not work for them insisting that they do not have a license, etc.

In the past, when I had troubles with Creo Simulate licenses, I had to manually edit the "feature.dat" to "tell" Creo what license to look for when attempting to run the program. I provided instructions to the folks at the other site as to how to do this, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

Does anyone know of any restriction that may be preventing us from sharing this type of license? Are there configurations that need to be addressed to make this work?

[KenFarley]

I see this might be a repeat, somewhat, of a question I asked before. This has not been a "fun" problem. Hopefully the new info I've provided makes the question at least a bit different than the previous inquiry...

[TomU]

@KenFarley,

Was Creo Simulate selected during the installation of Creo at this other site?

If so, were the licenses seen by the installer?

Are the Simulate licenses on the license server at the same version (or later) than the Creo licenses?  If not they will throw this error:

[TomU]

@KenFarley,

Take a look at 'feature.dat' in "\Common Files\applications\simulate\text\licensing\mech\".  These lines control Creo's ability to dynamically pull a Simulate license while Creo is running.  Need to have something other than '<No license features>' listed here.

MEC_BASIC_UI "MECBASICUI_License"
MEC_BASIC_ENG "MECBASICENG_License"
STRUCT_UI "<No license features>"
STRUCT_ENGINE "<No license features>"
STRUCT_THERMAL_UI "<No license features>"
STRUCT_THERMAL_ENGINE "<No license features>"
MEC_ELITE_UI "MECELITEUI_License"
MEC_ELITE_ENG "MECELITEENG_License"

[KenFarley]

Things I tried before asking this include:

Modify "feature.dat" to include the licenses for Simulate, with the two lines

MEC_ELITE_UI "MECELITEUI_License"
MEC_ELITE_ENG "MECELITEENG_License"

Run a reconfigure, so the data now provided in the feature.dat can be applied.

I'm being told by our VAR that because the Simulate licenses are not "global" they can't be shared with the other site. I don't really understand this bit of it - they're already, on occasion, using our Manufacturing.

As to whether they even have Simulate installed, they swear they do. I don't know if the licenses were seen by the installer, because I wasn't there when they were making the attempts. They're an ocean away.

Our current license file is a mix of Creo 8.0 and Creo 9.0 releases. We're running Creo 4.0, so that seemed to be okay? The file was created a mere month ago...

As for server specifications, they're currently able to use "regular" Creo licenses from our supply, including the Manufacturing one, so the .psf file setup is good.

[TomU]

When they run "ptcstatus" from a system window inside Creo, do they see your license server and the simulate licenses listed?

The VAR is correct on global licenses.  If you didn't pay (double) for global licenses, then they can only be used in the region they were purchased in.  Creo global restricted licenses are obvious because they include 'GR' at the end.

To be clear, they will function fine globally, and there shouldn't be any issue testing, but for audit purposes you definitely don't want to continue running regional licenses globally.

Here are some excerpts from the Licensing Basis document:

Except for “Global” licenses (as specified in the product name), all of PTC’s products are restricted such that they may only be installed in the country of purchase (referred to in the License Agreement as the “Designated Country”).

Except for “Global” and “Restricted Global” licenses, PTC products that are licensed on a Concurrent User basis may only be used by persons physically located in the country where the products are installed, and all of the software components shipped as part of that product (for example, client code and license server) may only be installed in the Designated Country.

A “Global” License allows the Customer to install, operate and use such Licensed Product at any of the Customer’s site(s) throughout the world,...

A “Restricted Global” License allows the Customer to install, operate and use such Licensed Product at any of the Customer’s site(s) located in the Designated Country and/or in any Permitted Country...   “Permitted Countries” means China, India, Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Malaysia, South Africa, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Romania.

[KenFarley · Accepted solution]

Aha. I think this is the answer. So it looks like we'll be paying even more to license Simulate for our overseas friends. They should probably just get their own license in their region, rather than us getting global licenses. We have all the licenses we currently need, we were just trying to allow an unused resource to be shared...

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

before you start playing with MECELITE I would suggest to test whether user from another site is able to use Creo license from your site.

Additional note: it is not enough to update feature.dat file. User must also update parametric.psf file  and add path to your license server into it.