How to Work Remotely With Your Existing Dassault Systèmes Licenses

In this blog, you’ll find helpful information on how to proceed and what to consider while working from home with your existing Dassault Systèmes licenses.

Should you need it, you can find more information directly from Dassault Systèmes, and on our Sustainable Remote Services and FAQs pages.

Work Remotely

First, let’s take a look at some general requirements.

Unless you have “nodelocked” licenses or your machine is hosting the “concurrent” licenses, it’s likely that you’ll need a Virtual Private Network (VPN) setting up. Unfortunately, TECHNIA are unable to do this for you, but we’re happy to advise on the requirements.

You can find more information about “nodelocked” and “concurrent” licensing below.

What is Virtual Private Network?

Essentially, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) allows you to work “onsite”, but remotely.

For example, you may want to connect to the company network to obtain licenses, access network drives, perform remote desktop to servers, etc. A VPN makes it possible for users to be on different networks but connect to, and behave as if, they‘re on the company network.

Is Using a VPN to Work Remotely Easy?

Once it’s set up, typically done by the company IT administrator, it’s simple to use.

The end user can simply connect by double clicking a desktop shortcut, entering user credentials and clicking “Connect”. Some VPN utilities may vary, so please read your company specific VPN user guide. Users would then be able to work normally with no significant difference to being physically onsite.

Licensing

There are three main types of licensing systems that Dassault Systemes’ products use: IBM License Use Runtime (LUM), DS License Server (DSLS) and FLEXERA FlexNet (FLEX LM).

Below is a summarised list of Dassault Systemes’ applications against the licensing systems they typically use:

NOTE: CATIA V5R19, V5R20, V5R21 & V5-R2012 all work on LUM and DSLS license systems.

For more information: V5R19 & V5R20 | V5R21 & V5-6R2012

What are “nodelocked” and “concurrent” licenses?</p id>

A nodelocked license is a license type which is intended for the use of a single machine, can be used offline and cannot be shared with others.

For example, if a user has a nodelocked license on their laptop, they can still work remotely using their license without network connectivity.

A concurrent license is a license type which is hosted on a server with the intended purpose of serving licenses to others and would generally be hosted on a server.

If a user would like to take a machine offline, they can offline a license (making it temporarily nodelocked) for a maximum of 30 days. After 30 days, they can simply “offline” the license for another further 30 days but must be able to communicate with the server (perhaps using a VPN) to do so.

If a user’s machine is hosting concurrent licences (such that it behaves as a server to host licenses to itself), this machine can be taken offline individually and will consume its own licenses.

How to Offline Licenses

To offline licenses, please visit the following pages: IBM LUM | DSLS | FLEXNET

What if I have a server with multiple machines and would like my users to remain offline for over 30 days?

Where a company may have, for example, 5 licenses on a license server with 5 users ready to work remotely, the following could be achievable:

i) All users could be given VPN access and simply offline the licenses for a maximum of 30 days and then offline the licenses again for a further 30 days whilst connected to the VPN once the initial 30 day period is over.

ii) TECHNIA are happy to help customers move licenses around to individual machines however, this is considered on a case by case basis and is not guaranteed.

3DEXPERIENCE / SMARTEAM / Other

Although machines can be taken offline, this is not recommended as a long-term solution

If your company uses a PDM system such as SmarTeam or a PLM system such as 3DEXPERIENCE, it’s much harder to work remotely as data is stored on a centralised server. Fortunately, although working offline in this scenario is not recommended, users can still work remotely using a VPN.

TECHNIA are supporting customers using myPLM with a special discount on myPLM Offline Sync. This myPLM add-on helps your engineers to use CATIA or NX in the same way they would while connected to your company network. In short, engineers can use all the tools, settings, macros and standards they would expect to during their daily work.

What Should I Consider When Working Over VPN?

In a word – BANDWIDTH!

Users must ensure there’s sufficient bandwidth at their working location (this applies to both upload and download speeds) as well as sufficient bandwidth at the server location. Ideally using fibre internet with good upload and download speeds. If there is multiple simultaneous access to a server, the bandwidth available at the server must be much greater than at the end user side.

TECHNIA Support

Whatever your request, we’re more than happy to help

We recommend that customers visit our FAQs page to see if an answer to your query has already been found.

If you require further assistance, then please check out our Sustainable Remote Services or contact your regional support team.