Auto-Provision - to use or Not to use?

[rbrunet]

Hello, 

we are new to flexera, still trying to figure things out.

We will be using FNO (Flexnet Operations Cloud) with Flexnet Embedded.

My question is related to the "Auto-Provision" option. We would like to use it, (not sure how else we can generate license servers and entitlements without it), but it comes with a bunch of limitations such as not allowing Transfers of licenses to other accounts.

We will have our webstore create the accounts and entitlements automatically, so multiple accounts/merging of accounts/obsoleting accounts will happen... 

how else can we do this?

[jberthold · Accepted solution]

Hi @rbrunet ,

The Auto-Provision attribute of a license model provides a turnkey method for the following actions following creation of an Entitlement:

1) Creation of a Cloud License Server for the Entitled Account (If one does not already exists)

2) Mapping of the full entitled quantity of licenses to the Cloud License Server

Without Auto-Provision, following creation of the Entitlement either you (or the end Customer if enabled) will need to create a Cloud License Server for the Customer and then map the licenses to the server.   This process can either be done manually or programmatically via web services.

For non-usage based license models, the licenses can always be removed (un-mapped) from the Cloud License Server and returned to the Entitlement.  Once removed they can be mapped to a different license server.

Best regards,

[jberthold · Accepted solution]

Hi @rbrunet ,

The Auto-Provision attribute of a license model provides a turnkey method for the following actions following creation of an Entitlement:

1) Creation of a Cloud License Server for the Entitled Account (If one does not already exists)

2) Mapping of the full entitled quantity of licenses to the Cloud License Server

Without Auto-Provision, following creation of the Entitlement either you (or the end Customer if enabled) will need to create a Cloud License Server for the Customer and then map the licenses to the server.   This process can either be done manually or programmatically via web services.

For non-usage based license models, the licenses can always be removed (un-mapped) from the Cloud License Server and returned to the Entitlement.  Once removed they can be mapped to a different license server.

Best regards,

[rbrunet]

Thank you.

I'll ask my webdev team to review the API and see what can be done on that side.

[ejohnson1]

Info:

v3/ManageDeviceService

1.  createDevice

2. linkAddonLineItems / deleteAddonLineItems for full counts and incrementAddonLineItems / decrementAddonLineItems for partial counts.

[rbrunet]

Hello @ejohnson1,  thanks for your reply, got us going in the right direction, but we are now struggling with trying to create a device as a server of deployment type Cloud. It keeps on defaulting to "Local" instead of "Cloud". 

Is this a parameter that is part of the creation process of the device or is it tied to another default setting somewhere else?

Again, we are running this in UAT.

Thank you.

[jberthold]

Hello @rbrunet ,

Was the server in your example auto-provisioned?  If you try to create a server manually in the UI,  do you have the ability to select Local or Cloud deployment?  If you are not seeing Cloud as an option, navigate to System / Configure / FlexNet Operations / Embedded Device Settings.  Server deployment choice options should be set to "BOTH" to allow creation of both local and cloud servers.   An auto-provision license model should create a Cloud server instance.

Best regards,

[rbrunet]

Thanks @jberthold 

Allow me to give more context.

We are automating the creation of the account/user/entitlements from our webstore via API.

We initially tried to use Auto-Provision, but found we could not do many essential functions such as transfers of entitlements so we decided to attempt creating everything manually still via API. (This is how this post started)

We can now successfully create new accounts/users/CLS and map entitlements. The only issue (so far) is that the new CLS is created as type Local instead of Cloud.

I'm wondering if this is a specific parameter in the API or is it a setting somewhere else. As this is UAT, I don't have access to any System / Config menus.

I can confirm that when Auto-Provision was being used, the CLS were of type Cloud (if that helps?)

hope that helps paint a better picture.

Thanks in advance!

[rbrunet]

Hi again,@jberthold ,

just to answer your last question, even in UAT, the UI does show the option of Local or Cloud so I can create a Cloud CLS manually (Via UI).

Thanks

[jberthold · Accepted solution]

Hi @rbrunet ,

In the create device web service there is a "deployment" field.  If you set this to "CLOUD" as shown below you should be all set.

<urn:deployment>CLOUD</urn:deployment>

Best regards,

[rbrunet]

Thanks again @jberthold 

looks like we were using another version of the API that didn't have the Deployment option.

Back on the right track again.. thank you very much!

Very much appreciated!