Sentinel Server Historic Usage Analysis

Introduction

The following sections detail installing the RMS reporting database and importing the Usage log file into this. In addition a number of the available reports will be described. Further reports can be provided by Sciencesoft Support, if required.

Usage Log

The usage log is a Comma Separated file (.CSV) that lists all network licence allocations from the Sentinel Server. To generate this file, please follow the steps in the Sentinel Server Historic Usage Monitoring document.

Sentinel Reporting Database

The RMS Reporting Utility as supplied by Safenet, consists of one table and a number of SQL queries that are run each time a report is requested. The reports listed have been provided by Safenet. However the database design has been enhanced slightly by Sciencesoft to improve the ease of importing the usage log file. If further reports are required, these can be generated using SQL as required.

When provided by Sciencesoft Support, this database contains no data.

Database Installation

The reporting database is a Microsoft Access database. As such at least Microsoft Access version 97 must be installed on the workstation to open this. In addition the lsusage executable must be in the same folder to allow the usagelog conversion to be completed.

The following steps must be completed to install this application:

1. Download the lsuage-v2.2.zip file from our FTP site. The download details can be provided by contacting Sciencesoft Support.
2. Extract the contents of the ZIP file to a workstation that has Microsoft Access installed. Note this does not have to be the same workstation that is running the Sentinel Server software.
3. Double click on the ‘ReportDB-Analysisv2.2.mdb’ to launch Microsoft Access and open this database. When launched for the first time, the ‘Macros Single Step’ dialog will be displayed:

    

4. Click on the ‘Stop All Macros’ on the dialog to close this.
5. Click on the ‘Enable Content’ button along the top:

   

   This will display the ‘Security Warning’:

   

6. Select the ‘Yes’ button to close this.
7. The database must be closed and re-opened to enable this content:

   

The Database security has now been set and the data can be imported.

Importing the Usage Log File

Before the Usagelog files can be analysed, they must first be imported into the RMS Reporting Utility. To complete this, please follow these steps:

1. Copy the usagelog.csv file from the Sentinel server location defined in the Sentinel Server Historic Usage Monitoring setup, to the same folder as the Reporting database. (Although this is not a required step, it makes finding this file easier.)
2. Click on the ‘Import New Data From Server Log Files’ link on the reporting database main Switchboard, to display the ‘Browse’ dialog:

   

3. Navigate to the correct folder, highlight the file and click on ‘Open’. Note nothing will appear to happen for a few minutes however the database may become unresponsive.
4. Once the import has been completed, a dialog similar to the following will be displayed:

   

5. Click on OK to close this.

   The usage log csv file has now been imported into the Reporting database.

   Note if the same Usage Log file is imported again, the following dialog will be displayed:

   

   followed by:

   

   In this case, the additional duplicate entries are removed from the database when OK is pressed.

Usage log File Analysis

The usage log file contents have now been imported into the Sentinel RMS Reporting Utility. To display the default reporting options, click on the ‘Analysis of Current Log Data’ button from the main reporting database homepage. This will display the following form:

The following sections detail the available options here.

Date Range

When opened, the ‘Available Date Range’ is automatically populated with the date range available from the usage log data imported.

The ‘Specify Date Range’ will be blank when first opened but can be populated with dates to analyse a subset of the available data:

For Example, in this case the start date and end dates have been specified as the 1^st week in December.

 Available Reports

As can be seen from the image above, there are a number of available reports defined within the RMS Reporting utility. These can be selected by clicking on any of the links, however some require further date refinement details to be entered.

Further details  on each report can be found in the attached PDF file 'Sentinel Server Monitoring -Available Reports v1.pdf'.

If these reports do not provide the required details, please contact Sciencesoft Support for further options.