Smart Accounts provide a centralized, organized, and simple-to-use solution for managing Cisco software licenses across an entire organization. They act as a container that holds all Cisco software assets, allowing customers to view, store, manage, and move these assets as needed. Smart Accounts enable full visibility into license entitlements and usage, helping optimize software management. Smart Accounts support license pooling, portability, and provide compliance reporting.

Virtual Accounts are customizable subaccounts within a Smart Account used to organize and optimize Cisco licenses. They can be structured to reflect business units, product types, or geographic locations, allowing better planning and utilization of assets.

If you have multiple Smart Accounts, one account is set as your default account. You can change the default account that the License Manager uses for visualization and licensing operations, such as registration and license level changes.

Each device can synchronize with only one Smart Account at a time. If you have multiple Smart Accounts, you must select one for synchronization. You may change your selected Smart Account as needed; however, if you delete the Smart Account currently associated with your device, the synchronization process will fail.

After changing the default Smart Account, it takes several minutes to retrieve the data from CSSM and display it on the License Manager Overview and All License windows.

If you already have a Cisco Smart Account, you can use Catalyst Center to:

• Track your license consumption and expiration dates,

• Apply and activate new licenses without user intervention,

• Promote each device's license level from Essentials to Advantage (or vice versa) and reboot the device with the new feature license level, and

• Identify and reapply unused licenses.

You can accomplish this automatically, without leaving Catalyst Center.