Is there a way to track NetHASP usage?

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hi Guys,

 

This is mostly a question for CNC Software. I was wondering if there are any utilities available for tracking NetHASP license usage throughout the day. We would like a way to be able to see when our Peak usage occurs and which Modules in Mastercam are being used. We have 22 seats of Router Pro, 15 seats of Multiaxis and 22 seats of Solids. We would like to be able to track the daily usage of the Mastercam software licenses so we can make better purchasing decisions. I tried to contact Aladdin directly and that was a total failure. We can implement our own software solution if need be, but I was thinking that tracking Mastercam license usage would be benificial to other Mastercam customers as well.

 

Thank you,

 

Colin Gilchrist

The Boeing Company

MR2 and Beta test site

[Guest]

Colin,

 

Just take away access to the nethasp, you'll get a pretty good idea of who screams when, where the heaviest usage occurs and which module they use by whose screaming.

 

Cheap solution

 

[Rick Henrickson The Boeing Co.]

Hey colin I just learned a little something about vb

 

if you are running the vb and it crashes "I didnt have enough room on 1 page to fit everything"

it corrupts the mastercam file "OOPS"

i didn't backup!

[Colin Gilchrist]

Oh ouch,

 

Do you enable the "Backup" feature in Mastercam? We have ours setup to keep 10 incremented backup copies of every file. The backup feature only kicks in when you press save though.

 

Colin Gilchrist

The Boeing Company

MR2 and Beta test site

[Rick Henrickson The Boeing Co.]

no where is that located?

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hi Rick,

 

Here is some info from a previous post of mine:

 

 

We recently completed some functional testing with Autosave/Backup and we have determined that Autosave can lead to file instablilty if you allow it to overwrite your current MCX file in some instances. Because of this we have implemented the following procedure:

 

Begin by opening Windows Explorer and create two new folders on your C: drive.

 

C:MCAUTOSAVE

and

C:MCBACKUP

 

Now open the System Configuration dialog box in Mastercam and select the Files Page.

 

In the MCX Backup Files section, activate the "Active" and "Use backup directory" check boxes. I leave my Max limit at 10, but you can select the number of backup files that you would like to be in your backup cycle.

 

In the "Data paths" list box, select the "Backup files (MCX)" path. Click on the file explorer browse button and navigate to the C:MCBACKUP folder that you created previously.

 

In the "Autosave" section of the Files Page, Activate the "Active" and the "Overwrite existing file name" check boxes. Make sure the other three check boxes are NOT ACTIVE.

 

I am making the this statement strongly because the "Save using active file name" and "Prompt before saving file" switches are the main culprits causing the Autosave feature to be unstable.

 

The last thing to do is double click in the "File name:" entry field. Double clicking selects the entire string. Now press backspace, then type:

 

C:MCAUTOSAVEAUTOSAVE.MCX

 

Save your configuration file and you are set.

 

Now every time Autosave kicks in it will overwrite the AUTOSAVE.MCX file. NOT your current part file. It will also overwrite the AUTOSAVE.MCX file silently, which means that your current part file (the one loaded in memory) will not be effected by the Autosave kicking in. You especially want to avoid Autosave kicking in while you are in the middle of generating a toolpath (0 kbyte file dump anyone?). The next time you have a crash in Mastercam, open the AUTOSAVE.MCX file and do a File, Save As to recover it.

 

Every time you press the save button, Mastercam will save your current part file and then will save a "Backup" copy of your file into the C:MCBACKUP folder. With each successive press of the save button a new incremented file will be saved (-100, -101, -102, ect.). Once in a while you will need to go and clean out the backup folder. I open the folder in windows explorer, sort by date modified and dump anything older than 2 weeks.

 

HTH,

 

Colin Gilchrist

The Boeing Company

MR2 and Beta test site

[Glenn Bouman]

Back to the original question about Nethasp usage.

 

Did you try the Nethasp Monitor program that is on Disk 2 or here?

 

 

Here are Mastercam product codes.

 

 

 

2 Mill Entry

 

3 Mill Level 1

 

4 Mill Level 2

 

5 Mill Level 3

 

6 Lathe Entry

 

7 Lathe Level 1

 

8 Wire

 

9 Design

 

10 Solids

 

11 Router Entry

 

12 Router Level 1

 

13 Router Level 2

 

14 Router Level 3

 

15 Art Entry

 

16 Art Level 1

 

17 Art Level 2

 

18 Art Level 3

 

19 Five Axis

 

30 Nesting

 

31 Engraving

 

32 Curve 5 Axis

 

33 Five Axis

 

37 Pro E

 

38 Rast2Vec

 

39 Verify 5 Axis

 

40 Cat V5 in

 

41 Cat V5 out

 

42 Cat V4

[edmBosto]

Colin,

This will get you to some of what you are asking;

 

With mastercam running on your visible screen

hit AltV/click the hasp button/ then click on active licenses. This shows how many are active,

the max # of licenses, how many are now available,

and finally the product name.

 

If you need to know who is running those various

licences at that time will need to probably see your systems person as where I work only they have that for viewing.

Otherwise go with Johns solution and see who jumps up!

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hi Glenn,

 

This utility works to check the current net hasp usage. I did not see any options to create a log file with a running history of usage throughout the day. What we want is a High/Low count of the license usage over a specific time period. Checking the usage with the NetHASP monitor program only gives you the licenses that are being used "right now".

 

Thanks,

 

Colin Gilchrist

The Boeing Company

MR2 and Beta test site

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks for the responses, but we need to see the Min/Max usage for the different modules over a 24 hour period (minimum). It would be really nice if we could generate a weekly report. Checking the NetHASP usage "right now" doesn't tell me what the peak usage is during the day. We need to purchase additional seats of Mastercam and there is some debate about purchasing additional 5 axis licenses. We don't want to spend money for more Multiaxis modules if we don't have too, but we don't really know if we need them or not because there is no data to support the decision either way.

 

Thanks,

 

Colin Gilchrist

The Boeing Company

MR2 and Beta test site

[desmotom]

Just get people to use a sign in sheet when using the software at every station, clock in clock out. easy as pie

[Colin Gilchrist]

A "sign in sheet" will not give us what we want. It is not precise or reliable. Plus it adds more work for our programmers. Then someone (most likely me) would have to filter that unreliable data. We need a software solution that runs silently and generates some sort of time incremented log file, in a data format that is easy to export.

 

Thanks for your responses guys, but I'm going to contact CNC software directly on this one. Looks like its going to be a custom piece of software.

 

Thanks,

 

Colin Gilchrist

The Boeing Company

MR2 and Beta test site

[tweltin]

On ‎9‎/‎14‎/‎2006 at 1:55 PM, Colin Gilchrist said:

A "sign in sheet" will not give us what we want. It is not precise or reliable. Plus it adds more work for our programmers. Then someone (most likely me) would have to filter that unreliable data. We need a software solution that runs silently and generates some sort of time incremented log file, in a data format that is easy to export.

 

Thanks for your responses guys, but I'm going to contact CNC software directly on this one. Looks like its going to be a custom piece of software.

 

Thanks,

 

Colin Gilchrist

The Boeing Company

MR2 and Beta test site

Hey Colin,

I'm in the same boat, I need to be able to centrally log NetHASP utilization so I know what features I need to buy. Did you ever find a solution, and if so would you mind sharing?

Thanks!

 

Tobin Weltin

[Colin Gilchrist]

Hi Tobin,

I haven't been at Boeing since 2011, but I never did get any good responses from CNC Software on tracking the usage. The product they were using for licensing (Aladdin), is being replaced by WiBu. The answer I got (over 10 years ago), was "you can try contacting Aladdin, we are their customer and don't write the security software ourselves".

My suggestion would be to contact WiBu and/or Aladdin for help, to see if any of those companies make a compatible product for tracking license usage.

I believe our solution to the problem was to just buy more licenses. We bought mostly Mill 3 Licenses, but also added another couple of Multi-Axis licenses as well.

A couple of the guys I used to work with are still there, and are on this forum, so maybe one of them can chime in? (Calling Rick Henrickson)

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Best regards,

Colin