pdm_webstat does not match with license usage shown in the application and usp_kpi_data table

Products

• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager
• CA Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

In the pdm_webstat customer sees only 20 logged users, but the License Usage/usp_kpi_data shows the usage of 300 licenses (webConcurrentTotalLicenseCt) for some days when usually they have 20-40 users. 

We understand there might be a difference because of the usage of java client / REST / Web Services / etc. However,  if we filter by webConcurrentLicenseCt (Web client session type only) we still see a big difference compared to what is shown by pdm_webstat.

Environment

Release : 17.x

Component : SDM

Resolution

The webConcurrentTotalLicenseCt KPI is a cumulative license counter that operates within the concurrent_lic_refresh_interval (option setting in Options Manager that indicates how often license based KPIs are refreshed). If user A logged in and logged out, then user B logged in then logged out within the concurrent_lic_refresh_interval, the pdm_webstat will display max 1 session but the KPI will result in 2 entries, because two unique users logged in during concurrent_lic_refresh_interval. 

Consider this scenario, with the concurrent_lic_refresh_interval, default of 1 hour:

12:00:  Service Desk server is fully started and rebooted.  KPI is reading zero licenses used, pdm_webstat shows zero sessions.
12:05 - 12:50:  100 unique licensed users all log in AND log out during that timeframe.
12:55:  One person logs into SDM and stays logged in.
13:00:  The webConcurrentTotalLicenseCt KPI readout and pdm_webstat is examined.

In this case, at the 13:00 time point, the webConcurrentTotalLicenseCt KPI will read as 100 licenses used during the given concurrent_lic_refresh_interval of 1 hour.  pdm_webstat will show just 1 active session, though cumulative sessions would show a count of 100.  

As pdm_webstat only reports on web UI sessions being used, both licensed and unlicensed, the pdm_webstat command alone will not be a reliable means to read on license usage without further activity, such as running "pdm_webstat -D" to get the userid and lookup the contact record by their userid to see if they are a licensed user based on their assigned access type.

At the same time, the webConcurrentTotalLicenseCt KPI's indicate license usage over the course of time dictated by the concurrent_lic_refresh_interval and is a cumulative metric.  As a result of its cumulative nature, the KPI's are not designed to provide a real time count of the number of licenses that a given environment is expending at a particular moment.

At present, there is no such functionality available within Service Desk that offers an on-demand snapshot read of unique licenses that are being used within Service Desk at a given time.  

Additional Information

A possible means to obtain a readout of unique licenses being used, one would need to develop a custom report that reads all active sessions being logged in the session log table, matching each user id to those sessions, refining the list down to unique userids, then searching each user on their Access Type designation where the "Licensed" flag is engaged.   This information is being provided for informational purposes; Support is not permitted to assist in developing such a custom report based on this procedure being described.