New in LMS - Engineering

Improved behavior during activation and return licenses

Time to process has been reduced particular for the online activation and return, especially with larger amount of licenses. Additionally this improvement can be helpful in cases with complicated firewall or VPN environment.

Support TPM (Trusted Platform Module) hostid

The TPM chip which is available on newer PCs is now supported, similar like a dongle. It is now possible to activate the licenses against TPM (as certificate licenses).

Extended date format

Presentation of the date was unified across LMU and extended to larger pattern to prevent misreading of the day and month in different language settings.

Offline SUR Expiry Date Update

With the simplified SUR expiry date workflow the offline case is much simpler. It is no longer required to create a request file, you can directly with second step and create a response file and apply to each machine (with same CSID).

SUR Expiry Date Product

For distributed systems, we further simplified the SUR expiry date workflow. It is possible now to download a SUR expiry date product and install them on central license server, the SUR expiry date is then transferred automatically to each license client.

Improve LMU Menu Structure

We improved the LMU menu structure for activatable items. The offline workflow is now better supported.

Support Driverless Dongles

This is a new dongle (which will be available in 2021) with additional features. Starting from LMS 2.4 those (new) dongles are supported.

Fully support of FIPS mode

With LMS 2.4 we support now fully the FIPS mode.

Offline workflow supported with older LMS versions

With LMS 2.4 we support now older LMS clients during offline workflow. This is mainly important for sites which cannot update deprecated (older) LMS Versions.

Enable LMU to maintain CSID attributes

It is now possible to enable CSID attributes directly within LMU.

TPM License Activation

It is now possible to activate the TPM licenses using TPM ID.

Retrieve TPM Licenses

The Retrieve TPM Licenses allows you to retrieve the TPM license from the license server.

Partial Activation and Partial Return

It is now possible to partially activate the trusted storage licenses and dongle licenses on different machines. Similarly, license can be partially returned using the Install Count field.

Siemens Software Update

Common Software Updater for software updates is now replaced by Siemens Software Updater.

Retrieve Dongle Licenses

With internet connection, the Retrieve Dongle Licenses allows you to retrieve the dongle license from the license server. This feature eases  the activation process by retrieving the .LIC file. This is useful when the .LIC file is not available on the local drive. This improves the handling of licenses for field engineers; they can retrieve associated licenses for their dongle.

Server and local Certificate icons

Server and Local certificates are indicated by icons.

View/Delete Expired Licenses

This section helps you to view/delete the expired licenses.

Retrieve Dongle Licenses

The Retrieve Dongle Licenses allows you to retrieve the dongle license from the license server. This feature eases  the activation process by retrieving the .LIC file. This is useful when the .LIC file is not available on the local drive.

Enhanced virtualization support

This LMU V2.1/SP1 version now fully supports the following virtual environments and there are no limitations from the LMU side.

• Marathon (Everrun). Note: A special patch needs to be applied on Marathon V7.5.1 so that the Marathon detection works in LMU.
• Hyper- V
• Amazon WS (AWS)

Zip Installed base information

The About box has now an additional button Zip Installed base information that allows you to zip all the relevant base information.  This is useful when it is not possible to send the information directly to the server (which is not connected to the network machines).

New “All” option available on the Licensed Products - Query view

The “All” query view now shows both active and disabled licenses.

Language selection page

The new Options page found under the Settings area allows the customer to easily change the language of the LMU application.

Improved layout of activatable items

The Activatable Items section has been updated to better differentiate offline related activities from online/dongle related activities.

Support of Dongle Activation with Activation ID

Previous versions supported Dongle Activation only with an Entitlement ID, which caused unwanted activation of licenses in some instances.  Dongle activation of a Single Activation ID is now supported.

Activation ID section supports mixed methods activations

Different methods of activation (Online / Offline / Dongle) can be mixed and be executed at the same time.

Multiple plugged-in dongles view support

Previous versions of the LMU allowed that only one dongle can be plugged-in on the computer.  A dropdown is now available to display multiple dongles plugged-in into the computer.

Dongle Overview page

Detailed information about the dongle driver and its keys can now be viewed directly from the LMU.

CSID enforcement on Certificate files

CSID enforcement has been improved, now certificate files are also CSID enforced to prevent activation of licenses for different CSID (Customer Site ID).

.NET 4.6.1

LMU has been upgraded from VS Studio 2010 to VS2013, this means that the LMU requires .NET 4.6.1 and VC redistributables VC++ 2013.

Additional information on consumed features

The Available features table now displays even more information in regards to consumed features, providing more details on who has currently checked out a feature.

Reduced time when a license is returned

Previously when the connection between the License Server and a checked out feature was lost, the time needed to return the feature was 2hrs.  This has been reduced now to 20 minutes.

Activation API

A new C# API has been introduced that supports license Activation and return.  For more information see the LEL SDK help documentation.

Server information available

Additional Server information is now available within the LMU such as providing a Server info page and current status on LMU Web Services.

Enhanced installed base information

Improvements have been made to the information that is currently collected to analyze licensing issues on a customer, such as easier collection of error log files.

LMS System ID

The unique ID assigned to every LMU can be found under the «About» box details.

Maintenance notifications

Windows notifications have been implemented to notify users when a maintenance is about to expire.  These notifications do not require that the LMU is running.

SUR expiry notification for offline machines

Previous versions of the LMU required an active online connection in order to display SUR information (SUR licenses, etc).   SUR information of an offline machine can now be imported from an online machine for administration.

Software update notification

The user will be notified about the updated versions of the product, critical fixes or important announcements without the need of running the LMU application.

LMS in VM workstation

The License Management utility installed in a virtual machine (VM) workstation contains fewer activation options such as Entitlement IDs, Activation IDs and Dongle Certificate.

SUR option

The SUR option in the drop-down of «Licensed Products» allows you to see any possible upgrades for products installed.

Information on
expiration of features

The «Expiration» field (in «Upgrade data» drop-down) specifies the last date when it is possible to perform the upgrade procedure. After this date it is no longer possible to perform the upgrade.

Discontinued support of
Flexera dongles

Flexera CMD.03 dongles are no more supported in LMU. If you plug such dongle in and click «Check Dongle» in Dongle validation tab you will receive an error message.

Version independence of LMU server and client

In current design if you want to connect your LMU client to a remote FNP Server the version of FNP on the server has to always be the same or higher as on the client machine. See also FNP compatibility matrix.

Connection test feature

The new connection test element named «Fno Service» shows the actual status of the FNO service.

Environment display (client)

A new property «Operation Mode» in the first row displays the environment in which the LMU client is running.

Expired licenses in new location

This information has been moved to the «Query» drop-down list in «Licensed Products» environment.

Expired licenses deletion

It is no longer possible to delete expired licenses. The only way is to return them.

Entitlement activation
warning message

If you activate an entitlement by means of «Dongle Activation» and you select all the licenses and then click «Activate License» you will get the following new confirmation message: «Do you really want to activate all licenses from the entitlement?» which helps to avoid unintentional activation of licenses.

Supported virtual environments

The LMS system supports different virtual environments. These are:

VMWare Workstation (versions 7,8,9,10)

VMWare ESXi

New statistic columns in
«Available Features»

The statistics in «Available Features» include several new columns, e.g. Product, Feature, Purchased, Max. available, Consumed, Remaining, Started on, Expiration date.

About

New items

The About box now displays two items more:

• LMU Tool version number.
• LMU Web Services version number.

 Export function

• Exports the parameters displayed in the About Details box to an Excel sheet.

Remote Dongle Engineering

The functionality of LicDongleValidation is now also available in LMU. There's no need to use LicDongleValidation any longer if working with LMU.

Manual Activation / Manual Return

Likewise new dongle activation, manual activation can also be done through LMU, without dealing with back office server (FNO [FlexNet Operations]).

Connection Check

An expandable Connection Test panel has been added to the Settings/Maintenance page.

Consistency Check

The consistency check delivers structured and formatted error message for each feature in case of failure. The message contains feature name, version and rule which has caused the failure, including all dependent features. The message is shown in the consistency check message box.

If the user double-clicks the feature marked as inconsistent a message box (structured error message) will pop up.

License Maintenance

"Expired License" view improved: The expired Trusted Store licenses are displayed and can be selectively removed from LMU.

.NET Framework

From LMS 2.0SP1, .NET Framework v4.0 is needed.

Naming Convention
of Certificate Files

This is more flexibel now.

For certificates generated with LMU version > 2.0.150: The user is able to rename the certificate and activate the license using the renamed certificate.

For certificates generated with LMU ≤ 2.0.150:  If the certificate follows the naming convention the user is able to import and activate it successfully.

CSID

[Customer Site ID]
License Server of each customer are assigned by an ID which enables not only identification, but also prevention of misuse of licenses.

VM on Hypervisor

[VM on Hypervisor (ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V)]
Trusted Store Licenses can be activated on VMs, running on Hypervisor server.

Remote Dongle Engineering

To maintain engineering use cases, dongle devices can be recognized by license server remotely from another PC.

Dongle License File

[Create dongle lic file over LMU]

Dongle certificate files can be created and activated through LMU, without dealing with back office server  (FNO [FlexNet Operations]).

Start Date in Online Activation

[Start Date in Online Activation]
Start Date can be set for Trusted Store licenses. By this way, renewal of different product types are also maintained.