A Host license is required to host a meeting. A license is not required to schedule or attend a meeting. The types of Host licenses are:

• Permanent Host License—An installed Host license purchased to allow a user to host meetings that is assigned to that user the first time that person hosts a meeting. A Host license can be manually assigned to a user by an administrator; a user does not have to wait to host a meeting to be assigned a license. If there is a user with a Grace license and a Permanent Host license becomes available, either by removal of a host or the purchase of additional Permanent Host licenses, the permanent license is assigned to the host with a Grace license.

  In version 2.5 or higher, a user never consumes more than one Permanent Host license and can host a maximum of two meetings at the same time. Also, a Permanent Host license is released for use by another host only when the user of that license is deactivated (as opposed to version 2.0 where the licenses of hosts that do not host meetings for a period of time are released). If someone attempts to host a meeting and:

  • There are no licenses available.

  • The license of the host has expired since the meeting was scheduled or the meeting host has been deactivated.

  In versions 2.0 and earlier, a user can consume more than one Host license. For example, in a scenario where a user hosts two meetings at the same time. At the end of the month, permanent licenses are released for use by other hosts or retained for each user that continues to host meetings.

  An error message displays and the meeting cannot be started. (See Exceeding the Number of Available Licenses.)

• Trial Host License—Temporary Host licenses assigned automatically in a system that is in the Trial period.

• Grace Host License—A temporary license consumed by a meeting host in a Permanent License environment where all of the permanent licenses have been consumed. A limited number of Grace Host Licenses are temporarily available for a system with Permanent Host Licenses (a system not in a trial period) if the number of installed licenses is briefly exceeded. Warnings about the excess licenses are displayed to the administrator. Temporary Grace Host licenses in this scenario are associated with a user for 180 days. When a Permanent Host license becomes available, the Permanent Host license is associated with the user and the Grace license is released. If after 180 days the user with a Grace Host license has not acquired a Permanent Host license, the user is no longer allowed to host meetings. (See Exceeding the Number of Available Licenses for more information on system behavior when the number of Permanent Host licenses is exceeded.)

  When a user with a Permanent Host license is deactivated, the license is returned to the license pool. Active users with Grace Host licenses are not automatically granted the Permanent Host license. You must select Reserve license (see Editing Users) to release the Grace Host license and grant that user a Permanent Host license. Otherwise, the Permanent Host license remains in the pool until a new user is added to the system and hosts a meeting. In this event, the unused permanent license is associated with the new user.

• Demonstration License—Temporary host licenses with varying valid durations provided by a vendor on a case-by-case basis. (They are primarily used for testing.) When these licenses expire, your system returns to its previous license status. A Demonstration Host license expires whether or not it is assigned to a user.

• Local Host Licenses—Licenses managed on the local data center.

• Remote Host Licenses—Licenses managed by using Active Directory.

• Expired Host License—A temporary host license that has been invalidated because the time allotted has been exceeded. A user with an Expired Host license can still attend meetings and schedule meetings for others.

This section describes the relationship between the status of users and how host licenses are counted:

• Participant—An individual that attends meetings, but does not host meetings, and does not have control over the host features, such as presenting content unless the participant is designated by a host to be the presenter. No host licenses are consumed by meeting participants. This user can also schedule meetings on behalf of others without consuming a host license.
• Meeting Host--Schedules and attends meetings in the capacity of the meeting host, and is allowed control over selected features, such as identifying a presenter or muting another participant. Hosting a meeting consumes a license and that license is retained by that user until the user is deactivated. The Host license can take several forms. (See Types of Host Licenses for more information on Host license forms.)
• Alternate Host--Identified when the meeting is scheduled as someone who can assume the host role in the absence of the meeting host. If the meeting host who scheduled the meeting does not attend, the alternate host is given control over most of the same features as the meeting host. The license needed to host the meeting is validated against the status of the user who scheduled the meeting. In other words, the user who scheduled the meeting must have a valid license at the time of the meeting, even if that user does not attend the meeting.
• Join Before Host (JBH)--Allows participants to join a meeting before the arrival of the host or an alternate host.
• Overlapping Meetings--Two or more meetings that are scheduled during the same time of day by the same host. Starting in version 2.5, a user can host a maximum of two simultaneous meetings, consuming only one license; no user can host more than two meetings at the same time.

During the free trial period, the number of licenses available on any size system is only limited by the size of the system. Once you have purchased and installed licenses on your system, you must make sure you have enough Installed licenses to accommodate all hosts on your system.

If the number of installed licenses is briefly exceeded, a Grace license can be acquired by a new host. (Grace licenses are described in detail in Types of Host Licenses.)

If the number of active hosts on your system regularly exceeds the number of Installed licenses, an email is sent to the administrator indicating that the number of Installed licenses has been exceeded and recommends purchasing additional licenses. You must reduce your license usage or increase the number of licenses on your system so that it meets or exceeds the number of active hosts.

The audit manager runs once per day (at 2:00 a.m.) to adjust the number of licenses used as necessary. If the number of hosts has dropped below the number of Installed licenses, the licenses exceeded condition ends. If the number of active hosts still exceeds the number of licenses, email is sent to the administrator each month indicating that the licenses exceeded condition still exists.

Starting in version 2.5, users with licenses can continue to use the system, but users without licenses cannot host meetings. If there are no licenses available when an unlicensed user schedules a meeting, the user is notified that they might not be able to host that meeting due to the lack of licenses.

In all versions, the Administration site continues to be available, so an administrator can sign in, add licenses, and restore users ability to host meetings and access recordings.

When you purchase licenses, you use an embedded license manager tool to enter your PAK and register your licenses. License manager performs synchronization every 12 hours to update the license status and last compliance time. If two days pass with no connection to a license manager, an email is sent to your administrator to inform him that a license manager is unable to synchronize with your system. You are given a 180-day grace period to reconnect to a license manager.

A new email is sent to the administrator at the end of each month that the system is unable to connect with license manager to indicate the date when the system will be disabled. If your system reconnects with license manager before the six-month grace period passes, this condition ends.

If your system does not reconnect with license manager within 180 days, your system is set to Maintenance Mode and cannot be enabled until the issue is resolved. The email message informs the administrator of the date when this will occur. When your system is in Maintenance Mode, users are not able to schedule, host, or attend meetings, or access recordings on the system. The Administration site functions normally, so an administrator can sign in to the system, but the system must reconnect with license manager to end this condition and restore the ability for users to schedule, host, attend meetings, and access recordings.

Obtain Host and Multi-data Center (MDC) licenses by using the embedded Cisco Enterprise License Manager:

Fulfill the license order by entering the Product Authorization Key (PAK) in the license manager without using the web site.

To acquire a license request for the original system:

To use the Product License Registration portal, Log in at https:/​/​tools.cisco.com/​SWIFT/​LicensingUI/​Quickstart. You are sent an email containing your re-hosted licenses. Note that if you are doing the re-host as part of a software upgrade, you must re-host (see Re-hosting Licenses after a Major System Modification) and upgrade the old version of the licenses on your upgraded system. An error message, such as You are using an invalid license file with your current deployment might display on the administration site of your upgraded system. This is expected. The message includes an expiration date indicating when your system will be shut down if you do not upgrade the Host licenses before this date. The only task that you can perform after this date is to install licenses.