Hitting a License server over the network while time sensitve code is running.

I'm working at a university where the licensing is done by a central server. I need network access to that server to start Matlab (2015A).

I was working on a bit of time sensitive code (I want it to run fast) that uses the parallel and signal processing toolboxes on a machine that was having network issues. The network would come up/go down at frustratingly irregular intervals. I noticed that when my code was running and hit an element that used one of those toolboxes, the code would often halt with a licensing error. My presumption is that this was during a time when the box temporarily lost the network. The same code on a different machine on a different network has never had a licensing problem.

My belief is that sooner or later the machine's network issues will be cleared up and when this happens my spurious errors will vanish.

But I'm left curious if indeed the license server is being hit on a regular basis with each toolbox use? Since I'm constructing time sensitive code this would seem to be low hanging fruit to avoid.

Would a local license be faster? Are the network license hits time based tokens that expire?

I'm not trying to get away with anything here, just curious if there is anything down this avenue that an applications developer might want to be aware of as best practices?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Yes. The license check-in interval is configurable on the server. I do not recall at the moment what the defaults or maximums are.

It is also possible to configure a server to allow "borrowing licenses" for up to 30 days, during which time it would not be expecting to be able to contact the server.

A local license would not have server-related network communications difficulties.