Licensing model for client access licenses

Every valid client access license includes a designated authorization for one user or one program to directly or indirectly access the Rational® Asset Manager server.

Beginning in version 7.2, the licensing for Rational Asset Manager Enterprise edition is based on two defined types of user licenses:

Publisher: A publisher client access license provides access to all product capabilities. A publisher can submit, search, view, discuss, rate, comment on, update, download, and review assets, and run reports.
Collaborator: A collaborator client access license provides access to a limited set of product capabilities. A collaborator can search, view, discuss, rate, comment on, and download assets.

Both publisher and collaborator client access licenses can access the product through the web client, Eclipse client, and published Rational Asset Manager application programming interfaces.

These licenses are available:

Rational Asset Manager Enterprise Edition Publisher client access license (authorized user or floating)
Rational Asset Manager Enterprise Edition Collaborator client access license (authorized user or floating)
Rational Asset Manager Standard Edition (authorized user)

User licenses can be assigned or floating. An assigned, or authorized, user is a person or program that is authorized by an administrator to use the licensed product. You must obtain as many licenses as the number of persons and programs that use the licensed product. People or programs cannot share user IDs. A user can be assigned either a publisher or a collaborator license.

When you plan for the number of each license type for your deployment, follow these guidelines:

For deployments of 1000 users or more, most users might be collaborators. Consider using 10-20% publisher and 80-90% collaborator licenses.
For deployments of less than 100 users, most users are publishers.

Only administrators can assign licenses to users; licenses are not automatically assigned. Administrators can assign authorized user licenses from the web client. Floating licenses are used for a user who does not have the appropriate authorized license. Programmatic access also requires a Rational Asset Manager license based on the user ID. One user license cannot be used across multiple repositories concurrently but can be used across multiple client programs in the same repository.

Licenses are not required for users who are repository administrators. Repository administrators have authority to perform any activity with the Rational Asset Manager web application. Do not assign repository administrator privileges to typical users.

Note: Rational Asset Manager uses FLEXlm license key enforcement. FLEXlm consumes a license whenever a person who is not a repository administrator logs in to a Rational Asset Manager server. Rational Asset Manager Standard Edition licenses can be used only on Rational Asset Manager servers that are configured to be Standard Edition servers. Similarly, Rational Asset Manager Enterprise Edition licenses can be used only on servers that are configured to be Enterprise Edition servers.

When a user accesses the system, the user is licensed as one of these user types:

Anonymous user: The user can search for public assets without authenticating and consuming a license. The allocated type of floating license is based on the user operation.
Authorized user (AU): The user receives the license type that has been allocated to them. Repository administrators assign users to AU licenses. Those licenses are either collaborator or publisher licenses.
Floating user (includes Token): These types of users receive a floating license if they are not assigned an AU license or if they perform publisher operations but have a collaborator AU license.
A collaborator license is consumed initially until a publisher-level operation is run, and then license consumption switches to a publisher license. The license is released after 30 minutes of inactivity, or if the user logs out.

The system checks whether a user is authorized, and either allocates the authorized user license or provides a floating license based on the user operation. License allocation follows these processes:

Checks a user ID for an authorized user license
Allocates a license according to usage: To update or create assets, you need a publisher license. To search for and download assets, you need a collaborator license.
If a user is not an authorized user and is not assigned a license, when the user logs in, a license is not consumed. Depending on the action that a user selects, a specific type of license is required. When a user requests an action, a floating license of the correct type is allocated. If no licenses are available, the action is denied. A floating license is held until the user logs out or all of the sessions for that user expire.
Allocates a license for each user ID, not for each session: One user login consumes one license.
Allows for API operations to complete sessions on behalf of a user.
If you complete an operation programmatically, through APIs, the program consumes a license. To prevent multiple licenses from being consumed in each user session, you can use a repository administrator user ID to create a session on behalf of a user.
Releases a license when a session times out or if all user logs out and all sessions are closed.

Examples of license allocation:

An anonymous user displays public asset details, and an available collaborator floating license is checked out, even if the user has not logged in.
A user with a collaborator user license attempts to modify or submit an asset, and an available floating publisher license is checked out.
An authenticated user displays an asset, and a collaborator license is checked out. Exception: The collaborator license is not checked out if the user already had a publisher license from a previous action.
An authenticated user modifies or submits an asset, and a publisher license is checked out. If a collaborator license was checked out for that user, the collaborator license is checked in.
An authenticated user logs out, and the Floating license is returned. The license is returned whether it is a collaborator or publisher license, unless the user has other sessions still running.

Note: RAM will automatically step up to publisher floating license if there are no more collaborator floating available. A publisher license is a super set of collaborator. It includes all function that collaborator has.

When an authorized user logs in, a license is allocated to the user. If a user logs in with a different session or from the Eclipse client, the user is still considered to be logged in and does not consume additional licenses. The license is released only when the user logs out completely from all of the sessions or when all of the sessions time out.

If a user chooses an action that requires a collaborator floating license and then chooses an action that requires a publisher license, a publisher floating license is allocated to the user and the collaborator floating license is released. The user then holds the publisher license until logging out or until all of the user sessions expire.

If that user had an assigned collaborator license, the license would not be released because that license is assigned. Only floating licenses can be promoted. If you are assigned a collaborator license and try to complete an action that requires a publisher license, the license server allocates a publisher floating license if one is available.

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