Licensing Destinations and Formats

Note

This topic only covers the Admin Portal interface available for licensing export. For further details and for licensing export using platform CLI commands, refer to the Licensing and Subscriber Data Export Guide.

VOSS Automate provides the means to collect the audit data to track VOSS license usage in the system each month. This is required to ensure the billing is aligned with the license usage in the system according to our contract.

A schedule is configured to collect the data and save the output to the platform filesystem at 3AM UTC on the first day of the month, but the platform CLI also has commands to run the data collection manually. For details, refer to the Licensing and Subscriber Data Export Guide.

Configure License Delivery

System administrators with the required permissions (default is sysadmin) have the option from the Licensing menu to configure the delivery of the audit data by means of one or more of the following delivery methods and combine them into one or more File Transfer Destinations. These destinations can then be used to transfer the audit data.

The delivery method configuration can be accessed from the menus:

• Email Destinations

  • Requires an SMTP server configured on the SMTP Server menu. (Add a SMTP Server)

  • Destination name, SMTP server, sender, addressee and email subject are mandatory.

  • Options can be input for email addressees, otherwise the addressee is the sender.

• File Destinations

  • Allows for data files to be stored in the database and downloaded via the Audit Report Files menu.

  • A mandatory Name at either the sys hierarchy level or provider hierarchy level is added to define the file destination.

  • If this destination is used, as an instance of the File Transfer Destinations, the Audit Report Files menu shows the list of data files at the specified hierarchy level. Files on the system starting with vlf are listed here.

    Note

    If needed, the files can be deleted from the list, but this action does not remove files saved to the file system.

    To download the files, choose Export > JSON from the menu bar. The export will be a .zip file with a FILES directory containing all the files selected in the list view.

• HTTP Destinations

  • Destination name, hostname, HTTP method and URL endpoint must be provided.

  • Options are available for user credentials, port, a secure connection and a client certificate.

• SFTP Destinations

  • Destination name, hostname and username is mandatory

  • Options are available for port, user password and destination directory

• VOSS Cloud Licensing Service

  • Automatically upload license audit files to the VOSS Customer Portal - see: VOSS Cloud Licensing Service.

• Web Proxies

  • Proxy setup for delivery methods using web proxies - see: Set up a Web Proxy for Licensing Delivery.

When the required methods have been configured, the scheduled audit data collection can also deliver the data files by these methods.

Workflow steps:

1. Set up one or more delivery method destinations listed above.

2. Combine configured delivery method destinations into one or more file transfer destinations (File Transfer Destinations menu).

3. On the Settings menu:

   • Configure one or more settings instances that combines a file transfer destination and a file format and save the settings.

   • The File format options correspond with the available audit report file types.

     For details on the format and contents, refer to the Licensing and Subscriber Data Export Guide.

     • Anonymous CSV (file format: vlf_<provider_name>_<host_name>_anonymous_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM>.csv)

     • Anonymous ZIP (file format: vlf_<provider_name>_<host_name>_license_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM>.zip)

       Contains <YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM>_license directory with files of format:

       • vlf_<provider_name>_<host_name>_anonymous_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM>.csv

       • vlf_<provider_name>_<host_name>_license_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM>.json

       • vlf_<provider_name>_<host_name>_anonymous_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM>.csv.hash

       • vlf_<provider_name>_<host_name>_license_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM>.json.hash

     • Detailed CSV (file format: vlf_<provider_name>_<host_name>_detailed_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM>.csv)

   • More than one combination of destination and file format can be set up if needed.

   • An option is available to test the delivery of sample dummy data from an instance of the settings, in other words, delivery to the configured destinations.

4. At the scheduled collection date of the system or when the command is run manually on the platform CLI, the files are then:

   • saved to the platform filesystem (see Licensing and Subscriber Data Export Guide)

   • transferred to destinations and with methods according to the configured Settings combination(s) of: file transfer destination and file format

   • if the File Destinations destination is used:

     • available for export on the GUI from the Audit Report Files menu

     • an entry is shown in the transaction log (data/File save with either succeeded or failed)