CA Common Services 14.1 : LMP/EKG DATE AND CAS9182A

Products

• CIS
• COMMON SERVICES FOR Z/OS
• 90S SERVICES
• DATABASE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS FOR DB2 FOR Z/OS
• COMMON PRODUCT SERVICES COMPONENT
• Common Services
• Datacom/AD
• CA ECOMETER SERVER COMPONENT FOC
• Easytrieve Report Generator for Common Services
• INFOCAI MAINTENANCE
• IPC
• UNICENTER JCLCHECK COMMON COMPONENT
• Mainframe VM Product Manager
• CHORUS SOFTWARE MANAGER
• CA ON DEMAND PORTAL
• CA Service Desk Manager - Unified Self Service
• PAM CLIENT FOR LINUX ON MAINFRAME
• MAINFRAME CONNECTOR FOR LINUX ON MAINFRAME
• GRAPHICAL MANAGEMENT INTERFACE
• WEB ADMINISTRATOR FOR TOP SECRET
• Xpertware
• Compress Data Compression for MVS
• Compress Data Compression for Fujitsu

Issue/Introduction

CA products can use the LMP Seat License Registration common service to perform different actions, like :
- Track and report on concurrent registered CA product users
- Restrict the number of concurrent users of a CA product
- Validate CA products through LMP license keys

LMP Seat License Registration is used with the existing license management common service that uses LMP keys for each licensed CA product.

CA LMP is executed as part of the CAIRIM service. The KEYS DD statement in the CAS9 procedure points to the KEYS member. When CAIRIM is started, CA LMP reads and verifies each statement in sequential order, as found in the KEYS member.
During the operation of each CA solution, the CA LMP enforcement software is invoked periodically. This software compares the execution keys with the execution environment. If there is a discrepancy between the execution keys and the environment, it issues messages so that you can resolve thesituation and can avoid any interruption in the operation of the solution. If after 24 hours no violations occur for a CA solution, the messages cease.

The messages are written to the system console, the Event Console, a batch job log, or a TSO terminal, providing a history of the warnings.
After the messages are issued, the solution continues operation. The enforcement software ensures that a solution under the control of CA LMP is not interrupted because of expiration dates, improper execution keys, or changes in the CPU on which it is running.

If a CA product uses CA LMP, you receive a Key Certificate with the product installation or maintenance media. The certificate contains the product execution key. To ensure the proper initialization of the product, add the key to CAIRIM. To add an execution key to CAIRIM, add its control statement to the CAW0OPTN(KEYS) data set member.

Example: Control Statement

PROD(U5) DATE(14JAN19) CPU(####-### /######) LMPCODE(##################) 
PROD(TZ) DATE(14JAN19) CPU(####-### /######) LMPCODE(##################) 
PROD(SO) DATE(14JAN19) CPU(####-### /######) LMPCODE(##################) 

When the licence key is under expiration, the product will start generating in console, recursive messages CAS9182A looking like :

CAS9182A - WARNING: LMP KEY PROD (U5) EXPIRES IN 019 DAYS 
CAS9182A - WARNING: LMP KEY PROD (TZ) EXPIRES IN 019 DAYS 
CAS9182A - WARNING: LMP KEY PROD (SO) EXPIRES IN 019 DAYS 

where the number of days reported to reach the expiration (in this case 019) doesn't  give  the DATE() reported in the LMP Key generated for this same PROD() if added to the date in which the CAS9182A has been generated.
In the above example, the DATE reported in the LMP Key is 14JAN19 while the warning messages are generated on 10JAN19. Adding 019 DAYS to 10JAN19 we obtain 29JAN19 that is different from the DATE(14JAN19).

Which is the correct expiration date to take into consideration? 
 

Environment

Z/OS - COMMON SERVICES - CA Products 

Resolution

Basically  a 'grace period' of up to 10 days is built into the LMPCODE specification. So, the DATE() value reported into the KEYS member for each LMP Key must be a valid date but is not used by the CA LMP code in determining when the LMP key expires, it is simply an eye-catcher because all LMP Keys have a built-in cushion. 

The warning message CAS9182A nnn DAYS would be more correct as this is based on how the LMPCODE is interpreted by the CA LMP licensing code.
This information could be important if an EKG should be asked as consequence of this event.