Smart Software Licensing - Cisco ASR 5000 Series Administration Manual

Smart Software Licensing

Revision History
Revision Details
First introduced.
Smart Software Licensing
Overview
StarOS 21.3 and higher releases support Smart Licensing. Smart Licensing is a cloud-based approach to
licensing that simplifies the purchase, deployment, and management of Cisco software assets. Entitlements
are purchased through your Cisco account via Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) and immediately deposited
into your Virtual Account for usage. This eliminates the need to install license files on every device. Products
that are smart enabled communicate directly to Cisco to report consumption. A single location is available to
customers to manage Cisco software licenses—the Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM). License ownership
and consumption are readily available to help make better purchase decision based on consumption or business
need.
Refer to
about Cisco Smart Licensing.
Comparison Between Legacy Licensing and Smart Licensing
Cisco employs two types of license models - Legacy Licensing and Smart Software Licensing. Legacy
Licensing consists of software activation by installing Product Activation Keys (PAK) on to the Cisco product.
A Product Activation Key is a purchasable item, ordered in the same manner as other Cisco equipment and
used to obtain license files for feature set on Cisco Products. Smart Software Licensing is a cloud based
licensing of the end-to-end platform through the use of a few tools that authorize and deliver license reporting.
Smart Software Licensing leverages Smart Call Home to complete the product registration, authorization
resulting in reporting services available to the end customer.
Smart Licensing in Release 21.3
Smart Licensing is disabled by default. On initial system boot, the product enters an evaluation mode for 90
days where a maximum of 1 counting license can be used.
When Smart Licensing is enabled in Release 21.3, it operates in mixed mode where both Legecy and
Note
Smart Licensing is used.
• Legacy (PAK-based) licenses continue to be used for On/Off features.
• Smart licensing is used for counting each service. In Release 21.3 only the counting licenses listed below
ASR 5500 System Administration Guide, StarOS Release 21.4
142
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/buy/smart-accounts/software-licensing.html
in "Entitlement Tags" are controlled by Smart Licensing. All other counting licenses use Legacy
(PAK-based) licenses.
Smart Licensing
Release
21.3
for more information