IBM SPSS Usage Reporting

At work ([http://www.son.rochester.edu/](University of Rochester School of Nursing)), we use IBM SPSS for statistical analysis. To reduce the annual legwork of touching each SPSS user's machine, we take advantage of the central license management server option ("Sentinel License Manager").

This reporting functionality was written to ensure that we make sure that we have enough licenses available in our pool.

This small toolkit is implemented in two parts:

spss-use.r (an R program that reads a Sentinel usage report CSV file and generates a graph and a utilization text file)
spss_use_nagios.py (a Python program that reads the utilization file and responds for our Nagios monitoring system so we can get an alert when usage reaches a warning or critical threshold).

Preprocessing Steps

Be sure that your Sentinel License Service is enabled. On my machine (Windows Server 2008 R2), I set the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Rainbow Technologies\SentinelLM\Current Version registry key to -l spss-usage.log (but read the documentation; search your machine for License_Server_-_Commonly_Used_Variables.htm).
Use the vusage.exe program to export the spss-usage.log file to a known location as a .CSV file: vusage.exe -f C:\path\to\spss-usage.log -c C:\path\to\spss-usage.csv

Processing

Use R to process the CSV file. The spss-use.r program assumes that it will be placed in the same folder as the spss-usage.csv file; this is run with:

R -f spss-use.r

Example Output

See the included spss-usage.png graphic for an example of the graph produced.

Monitoring

The R program also generates a small text file (max_spss_use.txt) with the maximum checkout count (based on client checkins and checkouts within the last hour of the CSV file's data). The Nagios script reads that file and compares its information to provided thresholds.

This script requires Python version 2.7. Actual use requires updating the script to point to the correct path for the max_spss_use.txt file and exposing the script results from NRPE. This was my configuration line:

command[check_spss_use]=/path/to/spss_use_nagios.py -w 40 -c 45

License

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the University of Rochester nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

mfisher911 / spss-usage