[Condor-users] MATLAB licenses

[Ben Liblit <liblit@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I recently submitted a batch of 260 jobs, each of which runs two MATLAB 
batch scripts ("matlab -nojvm -nodisplay -r ...") toward the end of its 
work.  53 of these jobs failed because they were unable to obtain a 
MATLAB license:

    License Manager Error -4.
    Maximum number of users for MATLAB reached.
    Try again later.
    To see a list of current users use the lmstat utility.

The MATLAB scripts are short, each lasting no more than a few seconds. 
But my 260 jobs include many subgroups of about equal duration, which 
means I'll be creating large spikes in MATLAB license demand.

What's the right approach here?  Is there a different way one is 
supposed to run MATLAB under Condor?  Is there a way to declare the need 
for a MATLAB license as part of a job's classad restrictions?  Should 
every Condor node have a specially reserved MATLAB license for the 
exclusive use of the Condor job it is currently running, or multiple 
such licenses for nodes that run multiple concurrent jobs?