Re: Counting users

> multi-session device (like a 3487 InfoWindow) don't they all have to be on
>  the same ws-controller, same port, but different session number ? Although
>  that doesn't cover the chance that the user is signed on to 2 single 
session
>  devices that are on the same controller port, but it does help...
>  
>  Also if you're using the 6050, 2661, 9146 or 9148 ws-controllers, they can
>  be set to use the same session number for all of the session that the 
device
>  supports.
>  
>  Using 'rules' like these, you might just be able to get a fairly close
>  handle on usage.

It is one thing for a company with on-site staff to be able to figure out 
which devices are multi-session & try to keep track of this, but I got the 
sense that Ron was talking about having customers that did not want to be 
penalized in a multi-user license for users who had multi-session terminals.

So he might be looking for a way that he can provide software to his 
customers, that includes a way to measure this, without any of his people 
being on site.

Now let's suppose there was a directory some place that said that a 
particular device in the config that this is emulating ... that device number 
is CAPABLE of X sessions, so you count up the number of addresses on a port 
that have the same device number, excluding printer type, & the same user-id 
& you have an estimate of probability.

As a general rule, we can expect all sessions of a multi-session terminal to 
be the same device emulation.

Yes, we can be on a multi-session device in which each session is emulating a 
different device ... I have done this on occasion when I did not have info 
handy on what the emulated devices could do & I was trying to compare which 
can handle wide screen, show line 26, have most comfortable interfaces.  More 
commonly it happens because an overloaded port has limited number of 
addresses, so we have three of same device on same port & we trade off - one 
less session to one person, one more to another & in setting up other 
addresses, not paying attention to how the others are setup.

Unfortunately the 400 config does not KNOW what the real device is, so it 
could be simulating 5 sessions of 3196 while the real 3196 can only support 
one session.

If you do hardware support to the same customer that has your software, you 
might have access to an inventory of what we have, but even we do not have 
that information any more for ourselves, because a lot of our hardware 
maintenance consists of reassembling stuff from our corporate junk yard of 
old keyboards & monitors.  

Many years ago we used to make twinax cable for IBM & we kept the 
specifications & made extra for ourselves.  I suspect we have pretty much run 
out of that & also exhausted free samples of connectors.

The config would need to be able to access the serial # of the connected 
peripherals to figure out what the device really is.

This is an area where some customers might want to buy a better system for 
taking inventory of our peripherals & portable PC communications stuff.  Put 
a bar code on front of every peripheral, walk through office with bar code 
reader & pretty soon we have an inventory of what's where, so as to keep 
track of what we are using.  A different challenge.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
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