Licensing

The Aspen PLUS OLI license actually consists of two parts. One part is distributed by Aspen Technologies and the other is distributed by OLI. It is useful to think of the license in terms of a lock and key. Aspen Technologies provides the "Lock" and OLI provides the "Key".

What is confusing to new Aspen PLUS OLI users is that the OLI Property Package seems to be available to all users regardless if they have licensed the OLI portion (the "KEY"). What Aspen has done to make distribution easier is to provide a license tag in the Aspen license file for OLI (this is the "LOCK" part). This turns on the OLI Property Package in the Aspen PLUS GUI (graphical user interface). So it would seem that the user can pick the OLI Property Package without ever contacting OLI Systems. What is also confusing is that Aspen Technologies has been permitted to provide the OLI Alliance Suite for Aspen PLUS installation files on their CD (disk 6).

Alas, this is not true. If you do try this exercise you will find that a licensing error will appear informing you that you do not have a license for OLI. You do, in fact, need to contact OLI Systems.

Once you obtain a valid OLI License for Aspen PLUS OLI then you can properly use the OLI Properties in Aspen PLUS.

One historical note, if you have a multiyear license for Aspen PLUS and had version 2004.1 or earlier you may not have the OLI tag in the Aspen License file. The current agreement between Aspen Technologies and OLI Systems allows Aspen to provide this tag. You will need to contact Aspen Technologies for the updated license file.