When you start Adaptive Server, it attempts to locate the license file license.dat located in $SYBASE/$SYBASE_SYSAM/licenses. If the file does not exist, Adaptive Server looks for the license file specified in the environment variable LM_LICENSE_FILE.
The license file contains a pointer to the SySAM software on the primary server known as the license host, or to a remote license host where SySAM is running. SySAM consists of a utility, lmutil, to manage licensing activities, and two daemons—the license management daemon, lmgrd, and the SYBASE daemon. The daemons handle requests to check in or check out licensed features, as shown in Figure 11-1.
Using information in the license file, Adaptive Server connects to SySAM and attempts to check out a license (ASE_SERVER) for the base Adaptive Server product. If the ASE_SERVER license is checked out successfully, Adaptive Server continues to start and attempts to check out any optional features enabled in server_name.cfg.
If Adaptive Server is configured to use optional features, such as distributed transaction management (ASE_DTM) or high availability (ASE_HA), it attempts to check out licenses for those features during the start-up or when the feature is enabled. If a license is not available for an optional feature, Adaptive Server still starts, but the feature cannot be used.
