NetAct Licence

Manager Overview

1 © Nokia Solutions and Networks 2014

Index
• Introduction
• License Key
• Licensing Concepts
• License Management Tools
• License Management Operations
• License Management Functionalities

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Introduction

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Introduction
Introduction to License Manager

• The License Manager application

allows managing all kinds of licenses in
the operator's network
simultaneously. License management
operations play a crucial role in the
network.
• NetAct License Management provides
a centralized solution for managing
network element licenses as well as
managing NetAct applications
licenses. You can perform all license
management operations using one
application, License Manager.

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Introduction
NetAct 15 License Manager features

• NetAct software license keys management

• Network Elements license keys management
• Pool license keys management
• Automatic license distribution
• Auditing Network Elements against features template
• Notifications for license key expiration, running out of feature capacity
• Operations history
• Reporting for NetAct as well as Network Elements licensed features

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Introduction
NetAct 15 License Manager user interface

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License Key

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License

• A license is an agreement between the owner of a product and the customer, which grants
permission to the customer to exploit the product in compliance with the terms and conditions.

• The information, which enables the use of the licensed software is called a license key. Nokia
implements license keys as Nokia specific license files.

• Each license file gives permission to use one or several features or functionalities. A license file
contains information about its target system by means of network element unique identifier.

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Content of the license file
A license file can include the following entries:
• license code
• license name
• order ID
• serial number
• customer ID
• customer name
• max value
• start time
• end time
• target NE type
• target ID
• feature code
•9 feature name
© Nokia Solutions and Networks 2014
• signature
License states of network element (NE)

The license contains the states of the license file. The following table lists the license states in a
network element:

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License states of network element (NE)

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License states of pool and software licenses

The following table lists the license states of pool and software licenses:

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Licensing Concepts

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Licensing Concepts

The following licensing concepts are supported within NetAct License Management solution:
• Network element licensing
• Pool licensing
• Software licensing

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Licensing Concepts
Network element license concept

• Network element license management allows you to control the network element feature licenses
from a centralized location, taking into account the number of network elements in the network
and variety of licensed features within one network element.

• The NE licenses are issued for a specific target ID. You should know in advance the network
elements to which you will use the license. Once the license is issued for the specific target, it is
not valid for other ones. NE licenses are installed to network elements using either the License
Manager application or element managers.

• Network elements license concept is supported for AXC, BSC, CDS, FLEXINS, HLR, MGW, MSC,
RNC, SGSN, TAS, WBTS network elements.

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Licensing Concepts
Network element license concept

The following figure illustrates the network element license concept:

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Licensing Concepts
Pool license concept

Pool licenses contain license information for a large number of network elements of the same type. They
are used for AXCs, WCDMA BTSs, and Flexi Direct BTSs. Pool licenses are specific to one NetAct cluster and
they contain the NetAct Target ID of the NetAct cluster to which the pool license file is designated. They
also contain the size of the pool, which is interpreted differently for on/off licenses and capacity licenses.
• On/off licenses, the size of the pool defines the number of network elements, which are
permitted to use the functionality. This means that you can create licenses for that number of
network elements.

• Capacity licenses, the size of the pool represents the total amount of capacity, which can be divided
between the network elements. This means that you can generate licenses with different amount of
capacity for several network elements as long as there is capacity left in the pool.

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Licensing Concepts
Pool license concept
The following figure illustrates the pool license concept:

Pool License

Network Elements

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License management tools

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License management tools

There are three applications involved in the licensing operation:

1. License Manager
2. Nokia Central Licensing System (CLicS)
3. Element managers of network elements

The Nokia CLicS is used for retrieving licenses from Nokia. License Manager is used to manage
licenses in the NetAct system and generate reports. Element managers assist the License
Manager application in license management operations, for example license installation.

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Nokia Central Licensing System (CLicS)

• Central Licensing System (CLicS) is a service in NOLS that offers an access to License
Key (LK) retrieval.

• In the customer order, you need to define the functionality (feature) and the needed
capacity. Once the order has been placed, you can retrieve the licenses from the
Nokia CLicS.

• The Nokia CLicS also takes part in the pool license substitute process by generating
a substitute permission file based on the approved or rejected license substitute
requests.

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Nokia Central Licensing System (CLicS)

Access to CLicS via Nokia Networks Online Services (NOLS) using the intranet link:
https://online.portal.Nokia.com

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Element managers

Element manager functionality depends on the supported products. All element managers
support basic license management operations such as: license installation, license removal,
and some reporting functionality

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License management operations

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License import

• License import is an operation which allows you

to introduce a license into the NetAct system
for further management. Imported license can
be a new license or a new version of the already
existing license.
• After a license file has been retrieved from the
Nokia CLicS, you need to import it into the
NetAct license repository. License import
operation consists of uploading license to the
License Manager application and importing
license to the NetAct database.

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License import view

• Import single license file or

multiple licenses in .zip
archive.
• Set label for licenses already
during import to NetAct.
• Let License Manager validate
license files selected for
import.

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License distribution

Distributing license files entails downloading the selected licenses to the designated
network elements. There are following distribution options:

1. NE license distribution is used to distribute NE licenses, and to redistribute NMS

generated licenses.

2. Pool license distribution is used to create and distribute NMS generated licenses.

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License distribution - Distributing NE licenses

• NE license distribution involves downloading licenses to network elements in one or multiple

operations.

• We can download an NE license, or an NMS generated license to all integrated network elements
mentioned in the license file as a single operation.

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License distribution - Distributing licenses from a pool

• Distributing licenses from a pool functionality enables multiple pool license distribution to multiple
network elements in one operation.

• Distribute a license from a pool, network element specific licenses (NMS generated licenses) are
created by the License Manager application.

• NMS generated licenses are then automatically distributed to the network elements. During
capacity feature distribution, you define the amount of capacity for each network element.

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License distribution - Distributing licenses from a pool

• Select License

• Select NE

• Define Capacity

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License Deletion

• Deleting licenses operation allows you to remove NE licenses and NMS generated licenses from
the network elements.
• In case of the delete operation, licenses are removed from the network elements and not from
the NetAct repository. The delete operation leads to removing license from NetAct only for
licenses in a conflicting state. It means that the delete license operation is reversible and can be
inverted by downloading license to the network element.

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License Termination

• Terminating license is equal to permanent deleting the license from the NetAct cluster, which
means that you cannot use terminated licenses anymore.
• Before terminating a pool license, you need to delete all NMS licenses generated from this pool.
• For NetAct Software Licenses, you cannot terminate valid licenses with active software features.
It means, if a license key is the only valid one for a software feature in the NetAct cluster, you
cannot terminate it. You need to import the replacement license for the software feature
before termination.

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Upload License Status

• The purpose of the upload license status operation is to synchronize the latest license and
feature information from the network elements with the NetAct database and to keep License
Manager up-to date.
• You can perform synchronization by uploading the status of all licenses from the selected
network elements. In case there are licenses on network elements, which are not present in the
NetAct database, these licenses are uploaded and added to the NetAct database.

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Upload License Status

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License Export

• Exporting license is an operation which allows you to download a license file to your local drive.
You can download one license as an .xml file or multiple licenses as a .zip archive

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License management functionalities

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License Notifications

• The license notifications functionality provides you with information about all licenses which are
going to expire as well as about exceeding pool licenses or features' capacity. Expiration
notifications apply to all types of licenses, NetAct software licenses, pool licenses, and NE
licenses. Exceeding license or feature capacity notifications pertain only to pool licenses.
• License Manager supports two ways of warning user: notifications visible in application as a pop
up messages and e-mail notifications. When licenses validity date comes to an end or pool
license or feature usage crosses capacity threshold, an expiration dialog appears in the License
Manager application right after opening the application. In addition, all notifications are listed in
the License Manager application separately for expiring licenses, features running out of
capacity, and licenses running out of capacity.

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License Notifications

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Recent Operations

• The recent operation functionality shows history of operations performed in the License
Manager application and provides an overview of all operations performed by the user, system
or network element. You are able to see detailed information about recently executed, ongoing
or finished, operations, with their status of completion.
• Overview of the following operations is available:
- Delete from network - pool distribution
- Download - Substitution
- feature state change - synchronization request
- guided distribution - target Id verification
- Import - terminate
- license generation request - upload status
- license state change

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Recent Operations

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License Labels

• License label is a short legend describing license, defined by a user for easier management and
identification of the license files.
• Attaching labels to licenses can be performed during license import operation, creation of
feature template, and during viewing licenses in the License Manager graphical user interface.
Label defined for pool licenses during feature template creation are used for managing
automatic license selection in the guided distribution operation.

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Network element audit against feature template

• License Manager offers a possibility to audit network elements against previously defined
feature templates. This functionality compares the licensed features status of the network
element with the one defined in a feature template and check if the network elements have
sufficient licenses distributed.
• This option allows you to see if network element status is insufficient, equal, or exceeding
against to the feature template and to start guided distribution to all network elements having
too few licenses..

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Network element audit against feature template

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Network element audit against feature template

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License reports

• The License Manager application allows you to create predefined reports, using license data
from the database. You can create a desired report using the report wizard. The following
reports are available from the License Manager application:
- Report on NetAct software features
- Report on operations history
- Report on license files of network elements
- Report on license substitutions
- Report on network element license files of given state
- Report on licensed features of network elements
- Report on remaining capacity in pool licenses
- Report on comparison of templates to network element
- Report on comparison of templates to network element on feature level

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License reports

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