License Violation Severity

When you use more than your GENESIS license allows, FrameWorX Server reports a license violation with a severity level. The severity starts low and increases the longer the violation continues, so a brief or accidental violation has little effect, while a sustained one becomes increasingly visible.

The severity determines how a violation appears in the license sidebar in GraphWorX and Workbench and in License Monitor. When any license category reaches the severe error level, the GraphWorX title bar also turns red and displays "[License Exceeded]".

Severity Levels

There are four severity levels.

  • Normal—There is no violation.

  • Warning—A violation is in progress, or a recent violation has not yet cleared.

  • Error—A violation has continued for an extended time.

  • Severe error—A violation has continued long enough to reach the highest level.

How Severity Changes Over Time

FrameWorX Server tracks the accumulated violation time for each licensed feature, counted item, and additional node, and checks it every 5 minutes.

  • While the violation continues, the accumulated violation time increases at the same rate as real time.

  • After the violation stops, the accumulated violation time decreases at twice that rate. This lets the status recover faster than it escalated.

  • The accumulated violation time cannot exceed 5 days.

The severity level depends on the accumulated violation time, as described in the following table.

Severity

Accumulated Violation Time

Normal

Less than 12 hours, and no violation is in progress.

Warning

Any violation in progress, or 12 hours or more.

Error

2 days or more.

Severe error

4.75 days (114 hours) or more.

Example: Using a Feature That Isn't Licensed

The following example describes what happens when you use a feature that your license does not include.

  • When you start to use the feature, a warning appears immediately.

  • If you stop within 12 hours, the warning clears immediately.

  • If you continue for 2 days, the warning becomes an error.

  • If you continue for 4.75 days, the error becomes a severe error.

If you stop after the accumulated violation time has reached its maximum of 5 days, the status recovers as follows.

  • The severe error becomes an error after about 3 hours.

  • The error becomes a warning about 1.5 days after you stop.

  • The warning clears about 2.25 days after you stop.

A shorter violation recovers sooner, because there is less accumulated violation time to remove.

Counted Items

Counted items, such as the GENESIS tags that are listed in the Counts section of the license sidebar, follow the same severity levels. The difference is that the amount by which you exceed the licensed count affects how quickly the severity increases. The accumulated violation time increases in proportion to the ratio of the number in use to the number licensed.

For example, if your license includes 75 tags and you use 150, the accumulated violation time increases twice as fast as real time. The warning becomes an error after 1 day instead of 2 days.

After you reduce the count to within the licensed limit, the status recovers at the same rate as for a feature, regardless of how far you exceeded the limit.

Additional Nodes

The Additional Nodes category reports violations in a system of additional (child) nodes. How the severity changes depends on the type of problem. You can see the status of each node on the Nodes tab of License Monitor. Learn more

  • Duplicate node licenses—When two or more nodes that are connected to the base node use the same product registration number (P Number), the base node reports a violation. It follows the same timing as a feature: a warning immediately, an error after 2 days, and a severe error after 4.75 days. After you disconnect the duplicate node, the base node can take about 2 hours to detect that the duplicate is gone, and then the status recovers in the same way as a feature.

  • Lost connection to the base node—When an additional node cannot connect to the base node, the additional node reports a warning immediately. The severity increases at half the rate of a feature, so the warning becomes an error after 4 days and a severe error after 9.5 days. This gives you more time to restore network connectivity.

  • Other base node problems—When the base node connection is missing or configured incorrectly, or the base node reports that another node uses the same license, the additional node reports a warning immediately. It becomes an error after 2 days and a severe error after 4.75 days.

When an additional node successfully connects to the base node and its license is confirmed, its status returns to normal immediately.

Effect of Restarting FrameWorX Server

FrameWorX Server records license violations in a log, and it uses this log to restore the accumulated violation time for features and duplicate node licenses when it starts. Restarting FrameWorX Server doesn't clear these violations. The time that FrameWorX Server is stopped counts as time without a violation, so the accumulated violation time decreases during that time.

To clear a violation, stop the use that causes it. For example, remove the unlicensed feature from your configuration, reduce the number of tags that are in use, or add a license that covers your usage.