The Dassault Systèmes License Server (DSLS) is the critical gatekeeper for high-value engineering applications like CATIA, SOLIDWORKS, and SIMULIA. For organizations running large R&D and product development teams, efficient management of these licenses is not just an administrative task—it’s a direct lever for profitability and project velocity.
DSLS is robust, supporting concurrent, named-user, and token-based licensing models. However, its native capabilities, while foundational, often leave significant room for cost and efficiency gains. Without a data-driven strategy, companies risk either costly over-provisioning or frustrating productivity-slowing license denials.
This guide breaks down the essential monitoring metrics and proven optimization techniques to help your organization maximize the return on its DSLS investment.
The hidden cost of native license monitoring
Many IT and engineering departments rely solely on the built-in administration tools provided with the DSLS. While these tools confirm basic license status and current usage, they often fall short in delivering the granular, actionable intelligence needed for true optimization.
The core challenge lies in a few key “dark spots” that native monitoring solutions rarely illuminate:
- Incomplete denial data: You might see that a denial occurred, but detailed context is often missing. Which feature was requested? Who was the user? What was the denial reason? Without this holistic data, procurement decisions remain based on guesswork rather than necessity.
- Invisibility into idle usage: DSLS licenses can be “pulled” by a user when they open the application, but often remain checked out even if the user minimizes the program, locks their computer, or steps away for hours. This “ghost usage” is the single largest source of license waste.
- Lack of historical context: Native logs and real-time views lack the deep historical context required for capacity planning. To effectively negotiate renewals or predict future needs, you need usage trends over months or years, segmented by user groups, departments, and specific features.
- Siloed reporting: Large enterprises typically manage multiple license managers (e.g., FlexLM, RLM, and DSLS). Relying on native tools means administrative silos, making it impossible to report on software consumption across the entire engineering ecosystem centrally.
To move from basic license administration to strategic management, you need a solution that integrates seamlessly with the DSLS API to capture the missing data points.
Additional Read: From idle to ideal: Strategies for reclaiming unused engineering software licenses
Monitoring DSLS licenses: Advanced metrics for visibility
Effective DSLS license management must focus on active use rather than just checked-out use. This requires gathering data at a minute-by-minute resolution to establish patterns.
Track license denials by feature and user
A license denial is an immediate indicator of lost productivity. Effective monitoring must categorize denials using the following criteria:
- Denied feature: Which specific add-on or core license was missing? Denials are often concentrated around high-cost, specialized features, not the base license.
- User/group context: Did the denial affect a key project team, or was it a one-off issue? This data helps you justify reserving specific features for high-priority teams during critical periods.
- Denial rate vs. peak usage: Compare the number of denials against your total license utilization. If denials are high but peak utilization is low (e.g., 60%), the problem isn’t necessarily a lack of licenses, but a lack of control over idle sessions.
Identify and quantify idle time
The key to optimization is determining the difference between a checked-out license and an actively used one. An advanced monitoring platform does this by analyzing client-side activity—not just the server logs—to see if the user is interacting with the application.
- Idle thresholds: Define organization-specific idle thresholds (e.g., 15 minutes of inactivity).
- Wastage report: Generate reports that quantify exactly how many license-hours were wasted on idle sessions per month. This metric directly translates into potential dollar savings and justifies optimization efforts.
Visualize usage with heatmaps
Forget simple line graphs. A usage heatmap provides immediate, visual clarity on demand patterns across time.
- Daily/weekly heatmaps: These maps show, at a glance, the times of day (hourly) and days of the week when license demand is highest and lowest.
- Actionable insight: If a heatmap shows a drop-off in usage every Friday afternoon, or a severe peak at 10:00 AM daily, you have the data needed to stagger shifts or implement more aggressive harvesting during low-demand periods.
Additional Read: Floating license optimization: A customer’s guide to maximizing ROI
Optimization tips: Reclaiming lost license value
Optimization is the process of translating monitoring data into cost savings and improved user experience. The most effective strategies involve automating the process of recapturing unused licenses.
Implement automatic license harvesting
Since the native Dassault Systèmes License Server (DSLS) generally does not automatically return licenses after user inactivity, automatic harvesting is the most powerful optimization tool.
- Graceful reclamation: The best systems integrate with the client application to detect idle time and notify the user (e.g., a 5-minute warning message). If the user does not respond, the system gracefully saves their work and releases the license back to the pool.
- Scheduled release: Configure policies to enforce a maximum checkout duration or to automatically release all idle licenses at the end of the business day. This ensures licenses are always available for early starters in different time zones.
- Feature-specific harvesting: Implement stricter idle policies for expensive add-on features (like specialized CATIA modules) compared to lower-cost base licenses.
Align licensing with project needs (Group-based management)
Authorization rules within DSLS are beneficial, but managing them across a large organization can be cumbersome. A centralized platform allows you to create dynamic, policy-based rules that enhance fairness and efficiency:
- Reservation pools: Reserve a minimum number of critical licenses for high-priority teams or projects (e.g., reserving 5 CATIA seats for the New Product Launch team).
- Limit restrictions: Prevent one single group or project from accidentally consuming the entire license pool, especially during peak load times.
- Chargeback and allocation: Assign license costs directly back to the departments or projects that consume them. This promotes accountability and drives engineering managers to be more judicious with their software usage.
Taking control of your DSLS investment
Managing DSLS licenses, particularly for large, complex engineering suites, demands more than basic oversight. The difference between running reactive maintenance and running proactive, data-driven optimization is often measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
To fully exploit your license agreements, eliminate phantom usage, and guarantee compliance, you require a specialized, integrated license management platform.
This is where a platform like OpenLM excels. OpenLM is purpose-built to integrate deeply with DSLS and over 140 other license managers, providing the centralized monitoring, granular reporting (including usage heatmaps and detailed denial analysis), and automated harvesting tools necessary to recapture wasted license time. By leveraging OpenLM’s capabilities, engineering organizations can move beyond basic administration to achieve tangible cost savings and measurable improvements in user productivity across the entire Dassault Systèmes product portfolio.
Want to check how OpenLM Platform works for DSLS license management? Book a demo with us.
