Hello,
Is it possible to reserve floating licenses in Zoo 5, either by computer hostname or user name?
Some of my users have a requirement to ‘ringfence’ a quantity of Rhino 5 licenses to prevent any other users from using them.
Thanks in advance,
Teresa
A user can check out a license from the zoo server. This will make that license unavailable to other users.
Any sensible answers? 
Sorry about that.
Would you care to define sensible so that others do not get tempted to answer you?
I’m sorry, I thought you were genuinely being humorous. No offence meant.
Checking out a license would depend on it being available. This is what my group of users are trying to guarantee by ‘ringfencing’ a certain quantity of Rhino v5 licenses so that they can only be used by certain computers or users.
An example would be the use of the options file to reserve licenses by Flexera, if anyone is familiar with FLEXlm licensing.
Currently - as far as I can see - this is not possible. I’m sure @dale will correct me if I’m wrong 
I’m not questioning the validity of your request - the options you have now are either to install Rhino without the zoo on those computers (recommended) or checking out a license on a permanent basis. You are correct that the latter depends on a license being available but it would be done just once.
No, I couldn’t find any way to do it either. 
The difficulty we have is that we have more users than licenses, as none of the users need a license full time. They’re spread our geographically too so it would be difficult to co-ordinate checking licenses in and out. This is why the company went for networked licensing rather than local licenses.
If it’s not an option at the moment, possibly one for the wishlist?
Hi Teresa,
The Zoo does not have a feature to allow the reservation of licenses. I’ve added your wish to the wish list.
http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/ZO-61
I’m not familiar with FlexLM (enough) to know how is reserve feature works. Can you outline? What happens when a user outside of the reserve pool needs a license and there are not more to allocate?
You could run two Zoo servers; one for the critical users and the other for the less needed. It’s sort of like building a fence in your back yard to keep the goats on one side and the chickens on the other.
Hi Dale,
Thanks for that.
The FLEXlm reserve feature works by checking each incoming license request against any reservations defined in the options file. The users or hostnames are grouped (for example, by location) and then specific types and quantities of licenses are reserved solely for their use. Reservations have to be defined explicitly - no reservation, no access to that license - in the same way that firewall rulesets work.
For example:
HOST_GROUP HG_EXAMPLE hostname1
HOST_GROUP HG_EXAMPLE hostname2
HOST_GROUP HG_EXAMPLE hostname3
HOST_GROUP HG_EXAMPLE1 hostname4
RESERVE 3 example_license_code HOST_GROUP HG_EXAMPLE
RESERVE 2 example_license_code1 HOST_GROUP HG_EXAMPLE
RESERVE 1 example_license_code2 HOST_GROUP HG_EXAMPLE1
Computers hostname1, hostname2 and hostname3 are members of group HG_EXAMPLE. This group have 3 example_license_code licenses and 2 example_license_code1 licenses reserved solely for their use.
Computer hostname4 is a member of group HG_EXAMPLE1. This group has 1 example_license_code2 license reserved solely for its use.
Members of group HG_EXAMPLE cannot use the example_license_code2 license and members of group HG_EXAMPLE1 cannot use the example_license_code or example_license_code1 licenses.
FLEXlm also uses INCLUDE and EXCLUDE statements to reserve licenses.
Scenarios:
If the user/hostname is a member of a group which has the required license reserved for it and there are free licenses, the license is granted.
If the user/hostname is a member of a group which has the required license reserved for it but there are free no licenses, the client receives a message stating that the licensed number of users has already been reached.
If the user/hostname is not a member of a group which has the required license reserved for it, or the group does not have the requested type of license reserved for it, the client receives a message stating that all licenses are reserved for others.
I hope this makes sense and I haven’t dumbed it down too much. A full (and better!) explanation can be found by Googling ‘FLEXlm End User Guide’.
Thanks again,
Teresa
Thanks to everyone for your help and suggestions!
Hi Teresa,
Thanks for the overview.
– Dale