In a Terminal Services (Remote Desktop Services) or Citrix Environments users can use a number of different applications. In a heavily used system there could be hundreds of applications running on the servers in a farm. Administrators in charge of such farms need to ensure all applications are properly licensed. But how are you going to monitor all these licenses and their usage across server farms?
This is where Terminal Services Log comes to rescue! Our comprehensive reporting infrastructure allows you to both define the number of licenses purchased and automatically track how these licenses are being used across your farm.
Tracking application licenses
Let’s say you want to track the number of used Office Licenses.
Here is what you need to do:
- Go to File > Preferences > Licenses [tab]
- Click Add License
- From the License Type Dropdown choose Application per Device License (We support tracking of per User and per Device licenses. )
- From the Process Dropdown choose Microsoft Office Word
- Enter the number of licenses you have purchased
I have entered 4x Word, 10x Excel and 20x Access licenses. Sample usage report is displayed on the figure below.
This report gives me important information about the current licensing state of my farm. As the sample report shows: I am only license compliant with Word, there are too many Excel licenses and too few Access licenses.
Benefits
There is a number of benefits from having reports like this one:
- You can optimize costs for licenses you do not really need. (e.g. I could cut the number of Excel licenses in the above given example as I have 5 more than I really need)
- I can detect if I need to purchase more licenses on my annual renewal date
- I can change between different licensing schemas to detect if I could save more money with different licensing schema (per user/device)
Different licensing schemas we can track
Terminal Services Log allows you to track five different licensing schemas:
For applications
- Applications per User License
This license schema is being used for applications that are licensed per user i.e. you have to purchase a license for each user that uses the application - Applications per Device License
This license schema is being used for applications that are licensed on a per device basis i.e. you have to purchase a license for each device this application is being used from. (e.g. So in case you are remoting from two different laptops you need 2 licenses.)
For farms or servers
The following license schemas allow you to track licenses for a farm or single server. This typically includes Terminal Services (Remote Desktop Services) CALs or Citrix Licenses. There are 3 different schemas:
- Farm per User License
This license schema allows you to track the number of unique users that connected to a remote server. - Farm per Device License
This license schema allows you to track the number of unique devices (e.g. laptops, workstations…) used to connect to a remote server. - Farm Concurrent User License
This license schema allows you to track the maximal number of concurrent users that connected in the given period. This license type is typically used to track Citrix Access Licenses.
