RG00D Wisdom Licensing 101
This article is a breakdown of the way the Wisdom licensing works. There are other fine documents out there describing it, but due to popular demand, here is a RESguru.com pitch at it. Just for your convenience, a license calculator sheet has been thrown into the bottom of the article for good measure.
First of all, RES Wisdom is licensed by what may be described as agent+type. Besides those, if you want access to certain new tasks in Wisdom 2009, you must allocate a certain number of licenes to enable it. This is known as Connectors. The rules are as follows:
- You put licenses into a common pool. You have to purchase min. 5 at a time.
- A certain amount of licenses will be deducted from the pool for each agent installed, depending on what type of windows computer it is running on
- A certain amount will be deducted for each instance of a given connector you enable.
- Any time you delete a Wisdom agent or connector, the licenses it used will return to the license pool.
So, let’s have a look at the basic rules.
- 1 Wisdom license will be required by an agent installed on a workstation OS (Windows 2000 Pro, XP or Vista). This is regardless of the underlying hardware, if it’s a regular pc, laptop or even running inside a VM.
- 4 Wisdom licenses will be reqired by an agent installed on a server OS (Windows 200X any server edition). Again the underlying hardware virtual or not, does not matter.
- 8 Wisdom licenses will be required by an agent installed on a Windows server with Terminal Services enabled in Application mode. Installing Citrix on top or not, does not affect this.
True, back in the old Wisdom 3.0 days it was 1, 2 and 4, then in version 4 it became 1, 3 and 6 and now it’s grown again?? Yes, but those of you who upgrade from Wisdom 3 to 4 will know that RES Wisdom automagically throws in a bag of SA incentive licenses, meaning that you don’t have to go purchase additional licenses to keep your existing Wisdom environment running. The operating keyword here is ofcourse SA (Subscription Advantage). In order for this to happen you must have an active SA.. ahem.
The above scenario should be fairly easy to deal with. So what about them connectors we talked about earlier? Well, they’re quite simple too. Out of the box, with just the licenses mentioned above, you can do a ton of nice stuff with Wisdom, but RES has added specific new tasks beyond the standard set, keyed to specific environments. Examples are:
- Executing SQL scripts up against a DBMS
- Provisioning virtual machines on ESX
- Running SSH scripts
- Provisioning mailboxes on Exchange
- Provisioning objects (users, groups, ou’s, etc) in AD
Now, if you have no use for those types of tasks, fine – even though they are inside the Wisdom product, they will remain locked and won’t cost you a dime extra. However, if you want to utilize them, you will have to unlock them by configuring a so called Connector in the Wisdom console. You do that by going to the Infrastructure | Datastore | Setup | Connectors, as shown here on the right ->
When you add your connector, a number of licenses will automatically be deducted from your license pool. We’ll cover how many for what a bit further ahead. The result in the list of connectors will look like this:
So what does this configuration set draw from the license pool then? Let’s take a look at how the licenses are affected. The screenshot below is from the Wisdom console in the Infrastructure | Datastore | Setup | Licensing node.
From the connector overview here on the left, we see that a SQL server (no matter if it’s MSSQL, Oracle, MySql or IBMdb2), will draw 1 license from the pool.
The same goes for any SSH host, meaning any piece of routerequipment, switch, server, videorecorder, toasteroven, whatever – as long as it can speak SSH, Wisdom can tell it what to do.
If you want to talk to a virtualization host (currently Wisdom 2009 only supports VMware ESX), you add the Virtualization Hosts connector. This enables you to use the ESX server provisioning task. Below is an exerpt from the Wisdom console which may indicate of what it is capable of doing for you:
If you select the Create option on the VMware ESX Virtual Machine task, Wisdom will give you this dialog box to configure.
This may give you a good idea of the power behind Wisdom, all for the measly price of four more licenses, and not one single damn script either, thank you.
There are two more connectors. They will not be covered in detail here. We’ll leave that for a future article. The point to be made that you have a connector for MS Exchange (version does not matter) and Microsoft Active Directory.
The Exchange connector charges 16 licenses from your pool. The Active Directory connector charges 32 licenses. Now, before you cough up your skull, thinking that sounds expensive just for one additional feature, think again. What these guys have put in here is a enterprise scaleable Active Directory management solution which can be combined with all the rest of the Runbook automation you need. Take a look at all the cool functionality you get:
Take the license MSRP and multiply it by 32, then go compare how many scriptless management solutions are out there which will allow you to build intuitive, reusable RunBooks, like you saw with the VMware example above. Those tasks are worth every cent. Another thing, if you worry that because you’ve got 10 domain controllers in your organization domain thay you’d need 320 licenses – nope! Relax – after all, your DC’s are configured to replicate to one another, so for Wisdom to manipulate your worldwide domain, you’d actually only need one connector.
Finally, let’s get it straight once and for all. If you have a SQL, Exchange, Domain Controller or ESX, you do NOT need a Connector on it to do regular wisdom tasks, such as rebooting it or installing software. The connectors only unlock the Wisdom tasks specific to those mentioned systems.
Okay Let’s get down to dollars and sense. The calculator below will help you figure out how many Wisdom licenses you will need for your environment. Remember to use the Click to Edit button below:
RESguru | 
2009/02/02 23:58
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