Remember the good old days of having to peruse through hundreds and thousands of lines of text in multiple files to see ANSYS license usage information? Trying to hit Ctrl+F and search for license names. Well those days were only about a couple months ago and they are over…well for the most part.

With the ANSYS License Manager Release 18.0, we have some pretty nifty built in license reporting tools that help to extract information from the log files so the administrator can see anything from current license usage to peak usage and even any license denials that occur. Let’s take a look at how to do this:

• If you use the ANSYS License Management Center to add a license file and if the license file you are adding is a Lease or Permanent (paid-up) keys, i.e., not a temp/evaluation key, it will remove the old license file completely and use the new one.
• Download the Student ANSYS license generator file – ansysstudentyyyymmdd.lic – to the computer. The part of the file name indicates the expiration date of the license file; Extract the license file.

First thing is to open up the License Management Center:

The license for your computer is made in the form of a file called license.txt. Using the UltraISO or PowerISO or DAEMON Tools software, install Disk 1 and run the setup.exe file. In the initial installation window, click Install ANSYS License Manager and install the Licensing Management tool.

• In Windows you can find this by going to Start>Programs>ANSYS Inc License Manager>ANSYS License Management Center
• On Linux you can find this in the ansys directory /ansys_inc/shared_files/licensing/start_lmcenter

This will open up your License Manager in your default browser as shown below. For the reporting just take a look at the Reporting Section. We’ll cover each of these 4 options below.

License Management Center at Release 18.0

License Reporting Options

VIEW CURRENT LICENSE USAGE

As the title says, this is where you’ll go to see a breakdown of the current license usage. What is great is that you can see all the licenses that you have on the server, how many licenses of each are being used and who is using them (through the color of the bars). Unity 2017 download for mac. Please note that PADT has access to several ANSYS Licenses. Your list will only include the licenses available for use on your server.

Scrolling page that shows Current License Usage and Color Coded Usernames

You can also click on Show Tabular Data to see a table view that you can then export to excel if you wanted to do your own manipulation of the data.

Tabular Data of Current License Usage – easy to export

VIEW LICENSE USAGE HISTORY

In this section you will be able to not only isolate the license usage to a specific time period, you can also filter by license type as well. You can use the first drop down to define a time range, whether that is the previous 1 month, 1 year, all available or even your own custom time range

Isolate License Usage to Specific Time Period

Once you hit Generate you will be able to then isolate by license name as shown below. I’ve outlined some examples below as well. The axis on the left shows number of licenses used.

Filter Time History by License Name

1 month history of ANSYS Mechanical Enterprise

1 month history of ANSYS CFD

Custom Date Range history of ANSYS SpaceClaim Direct Modeler

VIEW PEAK LICENSE USAGE

This section will allow you to see what the peak usage of a particular license during a particular time period and filter it based on data range. First step is to isolate to a date range as before, for example 1 month. Then you can select which month you want to look at data for.

Selecting specific month to look at Peak License Usage

Then you can isolate the data to whether or not you want to look at an operational period of 24/7, Monday to Friday 24/5 or even Monday to Friday 9am-5pm. This way you can isolate license usage between every day of the week, working week or normal working hours in a week. Again, axis on left shows number of licenses.

Isolating data to 24/7, Weekdays or Weekday Working Hours

Peak License Usage in March 2017 of ANSYS Mechanical Enterprise (24/7)

Peak License Usage in February 2017 of ANSYS CFD (Weekdays Only)

VIEW LICENSE DENIALS

If any of the users who are accessing the License Manager get license denials due to insufficient licenses or for any other reason, this will be displayed in this section. Since PADT rarely, if ever, gets License Denials, this section is blank for us. The procedure is identical to the above sections – it involves isolating the data to a time period and filtering the data to your interested quantities.

Isolate data with Time Period as other sections

Although these 4 options doesn’t include every conceivable filtering method, this should allow managers and administrators to filter through the license usage in many different ways without needing to manually go through all the log files. This is a very convenient and easy set of options to extract the information.

Please let us know if you have any questions on this or anything else with ANSYS.

In these unprecedented times, many businesses are encouraging workers to work from home to help ‘flatten the curve’ of new cases from the global COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, at LEAP Australia the majority of our staff are now working from home, but we arecommitted to providing our highest levels of customer support and high-quality software demonstrations to our valued customers throughout Australia and New Zealand using online tools.

For our customers using ANSYS products, here are some tips on the options available to you to continue running your simulations while working remotely:

Connecting to your workstation via Remote Desktop:

With Remote Desktop Connection, you can connect to a computer running Windows from another computer running Windows using the RDP client provided you can access the remote machine.When working from home, this is typically done through a VPN.

Detailed information containing the procedure for setting up a remote desktop connection can be found at the following Microsoft online help document:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/17463/windows-7-connect-to-another-computer-remote-desktop-connection

When using CFX, users may sometimes see a black screen when opening a CFX-Pre or CFD-Post session through remote desktop environment. In these instances, creating an environment variable “QT_OPENGL=desktop”canresolve the issue.

Ansys License File Installation

Search for “Edit the system environment variables” in the Windows start menu to launch the following panel:

Click on Environment Variables and specify the new environment variable as shown below:

Connecting to your company’s ANSYS license server through a VPN

For clients who can connect to their office network through a VPN, it is possible to continue running simulations on their laptop or home workstation by accessing the Ansys license server through the VPN. In most ways, once you are connected to the VPN, the experience of running ANSYS will be the same as when you’re physically in the office.

Your organization’s IT administrator can follow these steps to ensure that engineers can access the licenses through the VPN while they work from home.

1. Set a static port to the ansyslmd demon; this can be done by modifying the Ansys license file’s (located at C:Program FilesANSYS IncShared FilesLicensinglicense_files by default on the license server machine) header from

SERVER <License manager hostname> <MAC Address> 1055

VENDOR ansyslmd

USE_SERVER

To

SERVER <License manager hostname> <MAC Address> 1055

VENDOR ansyslmd PORT=1056

USE_SERVER

Ansys License Manager Error

Setting the PORT allow clients to see the status of licenses and will enable them to borrow if they are permitted. Stop and start the license manager to ensure the license server registers the change to the license file.

2. Open a Windows powershell to test that the ports 1055, 1056 and 2325 are open for communication between your laptop/workstation and the Ansys license server.

Test-NetConnection -ComputerName <server hostname> -Port 1055

If the message TcpTestSucceeded : True is printed out for all the ports in the PowerShell, it indicates that the ports are open for communication. You will be able to check out and check in-licenses from the license server as if you were sitting in the office.

IT administrator can test this set-up by running the above commands by connecting a laptop to a mobile hotspot.

If PowerShell prints the message TcpTestSucceeded : False for any of the ports mentioned above, the IT administrator has to make those ports available via the VPN. The following command can be used to open the required ports (1055,1056 and 2325 in this instance) on the license server.

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'ANSYS License Server' -Direction Inbound -Profile Domain,Private -EdgeTraversalPolicy Allow -Action Allow -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 1055,1056,2325

Ansys License File Free Download

Borrowing ANSYS Licenses (on Windows)

License borrowing (available only on Windows machines) allows a user to take a license for use outside of the company facility, such as for an engineer to check-out a license home on his/her laptop.

License borrowing is available only on Windows machines; however, the license server machine that is managing the licenses can be any system that ANSYS, Inc. supports as a license server. Licenses can be borrowed as follows:

1. Launch the client license borrowing utility: Start > ANSYS <Version> > ANSYS Client Licensing > Client ANSLIC_ADMIN Utility <Version>

2. Select Run the ANSYS Borrow Utility. On the Borrow tab, specify the version number and return date. The return date defaults to the third day from the current date. If you change any of the borrowing criteria, the product list will automatically update in five seconds.

3. Select the product(s) you want to borrow. The product list includes add-on features or geometry interfaces. If you do not see a product listed that you think should be available, verify that you have selected the correct version. Click Borrow.

4. Disconnect from the network. Note that even when you’ve disconnected from the network, you must still run the products from the same account you used to borrow the licenses. For example, if you use a network account to borrow the licenses, you cannot then run from a local account.

5. Tip: While you’re still in the office, we recommend disconnecting from the network and verifying that you can run the correct product with the borrowed licenses from your machine (remember: test this AFTER you’ve disconnected from the network, but before you leave, in case any issues need fixing). If you encounter any difficulties, you can then reconnect to the network, return the license, and then re-borrow the correct license.

The licenses can be borrowed up to a maximum of 30 days after which the licenses would be automatically returned to the license server, and you will need to redo these steps. If the user wishes to return these licenses earlier, they could use the return feature to ship these licenses back to the license server. Please follow these steps if you want to return the licenses soon:

1. Reconnect to the same license server from which you borrowed the license(s).
2. Launch the client license borrowing utility: Start>All Programs> ANSYS <Version>> ANSYS Client Licensing> Client ANSLIC_ADMIN Utility <Version>. Select Run the ANSYS Borrow Utility.
3. Select the Return tab. Click Return all. If you want to keep some but not all of the licenses you borrowed, you will need to re-borrow them.
4. Disconnect from the network.

The license(s) you borrowed will be returned to the pool of available licenses on your company’s server.

Note that one cannot run both borrowed and non-borrowed licenses simultaneously. For example, if you borrow licenses but remain connected to a network from which you can use licenses, you will be able to use only the borrowed licenses. Likewise, if the machine on which you borrowed licenses is also a license server from which you could typically use licenses, you would be able to use only the borrowed licenses. You can borrow only one task of any particular license.

Coming back to the office

There might be some scenarios when the user cannot access the license server after disconnecting from their company’s VPN and returning to the office. This is a known issue with some VPN tools in which the tool does not clear the IPs correctly or does not clear them immediately after the VPN disconnection. To address this issue, you need to force a DNS clear by performing the following steps:

1. From a command prompt, issue the following command: ipconfig /release
2. Then issue the following command: ipconfig /renew

Our team at LEAP Australia hope that we can work closely with you and your business to navigate these challenging times successfully. For help with any of the above, please reach out to LEAP technical support or your account manager for further assistance.