• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2006

Since most CAD tool companies are carrying out very expensive license policies, designers are sharing CAD tools with a limited number of licenses within a design working or research group. It is important to share and use them efficiently, because CAD tool licenses are very valuable resources. Designers should know CAD tool license information such as available number of licenses, types, and configuration methods to use CAD tools properly in their group. Usually, this information is provided by managers who administrate CAD tool license servers in the specific design group. In the previous CAD tool licenses sharing methods, designers have to get CAD tool license information manually and setup the environments with their own hands, If a new designer comes into the design working group, the designer wastes unnecessary time and effort due to these manual processes. As a result, designer's productivity and utilization of CAD tools will decrease. Besides, managers also waste their time and effort, since they should provide CAD tool license information manually to each desiEner. In this paper, we present a more efficient scheme to share CAD tool licenses based on directory service. The proposed method automates not only the communication processes between managers and designers, but also the license configuration steps. We expect this scheme will reduce time and effort of designers and managers as well as enhance the utilization of CAD tools.