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The Cradle Database Server (CDS) is the Cradle component through which all users access their Cradle databases. The CDS also maintains several log files in the logs/system directory on the machine where it runs. These log files are:
3SL provides a utility called c_usage in all Cradle systems (Windows, UNIX and Linux) that can analyse the logins.log and licences.log files and produce CSV output that can be copied and pasted into an Excel file that is supplied with Cradle to produce graphs of the use of Cradle and the use of the licences in your Cradle system.
This utility can only be run on the computer which runs the CDS.
The format of the utility is:
c_ usage.exe [ -from yyyymmdd ] [ -to yyyymmdd ] [ -period < day | week | month > ] -file filename
So, for example:
c_usage.exe –period week –file results.csv
runs c_usage to analyse all entries in the licences.log and logins.log files and to produce a set of weekly statistics as CSV data in the output file results.csv.
Alternatively:
c_-usage.exe –from 20080101 –to 20083112 –period month –file results.csv
runs the utility to analyse all entries in the licences.log and logins.log files from 1 st January 2008 through 21 st December 2008 inclusive and to produce a set of monthly CSV statistics in the output file results.csv.
Essentially, the c_usage utility aggregates all of the logins and logouts and the licence usage data over days, weeks or months as specified by the –period option. It considers:
One CSV record is generated in the output file for each reporting period (day, week or month). Each CSV record contains values for the quantities listed above.
3SL provides a spreadsheet called c_usage.xls in the Cradle distribution as the file:
%CRADLEHOME%\admin\c_usage.xls $CRADLEHOME/admin/c_usage.xls
in Windows and UNIX/Linux systems respectively. This spreadsheet contains several worksheets. The first worksheet is where the CSV output from the c_usage utility should be pasted. Initially, this spreadsheet looks like this:
When the CSV data from c_usage is pasted into this spreadsheet, then the graphs in the other worksheets will display the corresponding information.
The CSV data must be pasted between the two pale blue blocks of rows. That is, the CSV data must be pasted between rows 12 and 15. You must create enough blank rows to hold all of the data that you want to paste. Do not overwrite any of the rows with a pale blue background or you will prevent the graphs working correctly.
This section will illustrate the c_usage utility with data from one of 3SL’s internal servers.
The steps are as follows:
1. Open a shell window and run c_usage to produce the CSV data. In this example, we illustrate collecting data from 2 nd November 2009 through 18 th December 2009 with the data collated daily: D:\>"\program files\cradle\bin\exe\win32pc\c_usage.exe" -from 20091102 -to 20091218 -period day -file d:\daily.csv
2. Double-click this file to open it in Excel:
3. Scroll down and note that there are 47 rows of data to be displayed:
4. Open the c_usage.xls spreadsheet in Excel:
5. Insert new rows between rows 12 and 15 so that there are enough rows to hold all of the data from the CSV file. It is probably easier to add many extra rows, paste the data and then remove the excess rows later:
6. Copy and paste all of the CSV data from its worksheet into the c_usage.xls spreadsheet, starting at row 13. Note that there are 36 columns (A to AJ) and also note that you do not need to copy the column headings from row 1:
7. Then delete all of the excess rows from the bottom of the worksheet:
8. You can now select each of the other worksheets in turn to see the graphs. The first worksheet shows the number of logins to Cradle in each reporting period (days in this example):
9. The next worksheet provides an analysis of the Cradle logins in each reporting period, by dividing the total number of logins into separate groups, colour coded using a key at the bottom of the graph:
10. The next worksheet shows the number of module licence requests in each reporting period. Module licence requests occur when users want to use specific Cradle tools, for example to publish a document using the Document Publisher tool or to generate a metric using the Metrics tool:
11. The next worksheet shows the number of times that each type of licence has been granted in each reporting period. In this example, the Cradle system is used to track the progression of changes in the Cradle software development and test process and so only REQ and MET licences are being used:
12. The next worksheet shows the maximum number of concurrent licences of each type that have been used in each reporting period:
13. The next two worksheets show the denials of licences. This situation occurs whenever either:
The first of the two worksheets shows the maximum number of licence denials of all types in each reporting period and the second worksheet shows the number of licence denials for each type of licence. As this example has been created from a 3SL system, it will not be surprising that we do not have any licence denials!
Naturally, 3SL is quite interested to know if you have instances where licence requests have been denied, as this indicates situations where you may need to purchase more licences from us!
14. If you want to save this set of licence analysis results, then select File → Save As in Excel to save the c_usage.xls file that you have created somewhere and possibly change its name at the same time.
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