Even before the government implemented the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, many customers requested that Sybase implement strong license management and reporting capabilities. Sarbanes-Oxley made this even more important because it holds CEOs of corporations responsible for any financial wrongdoing, including misuse of software assets. Because the banking industry is one of the most heavily watched industries, and given Sybase’s position within the financial community, Sybase adopted a more stringent licensing management implementation.
Since Sarbanes-Oxley applies to all publicly traded companies, Sybase opted to design SySAM version 2.0 so that licensing compliance is easier to measure for corporate users. One of the critical components of SySAM 2.0 is a reporting feature that allows information technology managers to monitor and report on license compliance to corporate officers. At no time does the SySAM software report license usage to Sybase. Any long-term use of Sybase software beyond the licensing agreements must be reconciled with a Sybase sales representative.
For a complete list of the SySAM features, see the User’s Guide Sybase Software Asset Management and the configuration guide for your platform.
The number of license servers you deploy is a function of how you wish to handle the geographic distribution of your hardware or the divisional separation of your project or business unit. Organizations that are widely dispersed typically have at least one license server per geographic region. While SySAM can support more than one license server, it is not technically necessary because the load on a license server is extremely light.
Although SySAM allows you to create redundant license server nodes to ensure they are always available, this is necessary only if you expect that a single license server will be unavailable for an extended period of time (for example, the grace period of 30 days). For Adaptive Server 12.5, customers licensed each server individually. In Adaptive Server 15.0, if you are using the served license (that is, licenses that are served from a central location, also known as network licensing) model, the licenses are managed centrally. In the served license model, you register only the license server node with Sybase, not the individual servers. The requirement to register the license server node ID with Sybase is not for reporting requirements, but because the license server node ID is used to generate the license key.
Some customers prefer to build their own deployment image for Sybase installations, using internally certified Adaptive Server versions and patch levels, containing the software suite in “tarballs” or other electronic packaging. If you use this system to implement multiple license servers, the only change to your deployment images is that, after the image is deployed, you must specify which license server Adaptive Server needs to contact for licensing. You can include this information in each deployment image for global installations since different builds probably have different localization requirements. However, you must change the license server host_name in the first line of the deployed license file, similar to this:
SERVER my_license_srvr 00096b138c70 VENDOR SYBASE USE_SERVER
If you use remote servers (particularly if they are outside a firewall), you can deploy license servers remotely, but this provides no benefit and is likely impractical. Instead, use the unserved license model in which license keys are read from a local file. For unserved licenses, the individual hostIDs must be registered with Sybase. OEM Adaptive Server deployments use a separate licensing implementation for embedded systems, and Sybase does not expect that using unserved licenses is a frequent requirement for these systems.
In earlier versions of Adaptive Server, you licensed the Java, XML, and XFS (external file system or content management) options. Adaptive Server release 15.0 includes licenses for these options. Other options such as high availability, DTM, and others, require separate licensing. When you start Adaptive Server 15.0, it automatically checks for some of these included licenses.
The Adaptive Server Developer’s Edition includes all non-royalty options from Sybase. Royalty options include the Enhanced Full Text Search, Real Time Data Services, and most of the tools such as DBXray and Sybase Database Expert. When you install the Developer's Edition and are asked to select the license model, select the unserved license model because the Developer’s Edition uses the file-based licensing mechanism. Because the Developer’s Edition keys are included in the product CD image, no further SySAM actions are required after installing the software.
Further information or assistance on SySAM is available at http://www.sybase.com/sysam. In addition, you can call Sybase Customer Service or Technical Support at 1-800-8SYBASE, or talk to your local Sybase Sales Team.
