SMS: License Balancing and Calculated Trend Balancing Are Not Turned Off in Offline Mode (226858)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Systems Management Server 2.0
This article was previously published under Q226858

SYMPTOMS

License balancing and Calculated Trend balancing operations are not turned off as expected in Offline mode. For example, in the following scenario, License balancing operations consumed immense bandwidth and Microsoft SQL Server resources:
  • One cycle delivered a 28-megabyte (MB) SQL Server log file and required more than an hour to complete because of writing to the log.
  • Network usage repeatedly exceeded 30 percent during the cycle on a 100-megabits per second (Mbps) network when not writing to the log.
Software metering performs License balancing and Calculated Trend balancing when:
  • The site is in Offline mode.

    This is unnecessary because:
    • No licenses are pushed from the site in Offline mode.
    • Denials are not possible in Offline mode.
    • Software metering servers have no licenses; therefore, there are no licenses to balance.
  • There are no licenses in the system.
Note that the only time License balancing and Calculated Trend balancing should run is in Online mode, when there are licenses in the system.

WORKAROUND

If the site is running in either of the states described in the "Symptoms" section, set the schedule to once a year.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Systems Management Server version 2.0.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) depends on SQL Server as its database engine. The database device configuration of SQL Server and the resource needs of SMS are linked and have hardware interdependencies. The performance of SMS is directly related to the performance of SQL Server.

If you configure SMS clients to run in Online mode, the Software Metering Client Agent contacts a software metering server whenever a user starts or quits a program. Online mode enables you to control software usage through permissions or license availability. In Online metering mode, you must provide sufficient capacity of software metering servers to respond in real time to the peaks that you have charted.

If you configure SMS clients to run in Online mode, consider the following ramifications:
  • Network traffic increases because of the immediate reporting of the client agent to the software metering server.
  • Demand for product licenses from clients in real time increases the load on software metering servers.
  • Each software metering server can serve a significantly lower number of users in Online mode than in Offline mode.
The key to measuring software metering capacity requirements is to estimate the number of program starts and quits over a known period (per hour, day, or week). For example, if 120 clients each run two metered programs, and they all start and quit the programs during the same hour, that is equivalent to 480 metering events per hour.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:4/26/2006
Keywords:kbBug KB226858
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