This article provides information on available licenses and deployment solutions on Cisco IOS XR Routers.

Cisco IOS XR licensing is structured to provide flexibility and scalability for network operators, with a focus on high-end routers.

The Cisco Network Convergence System (NCS) 540 Series routers are a family of fixed-form-factor routers designed for the service provider market. These routers offer high-density, small-footprint solutions for deployment in provider edge and access networks. These routers are optimized for the 5G and multicloud era, providing high throughput, low latency, and a rich set of features to support various applications, including mobile backhaul, residential, and business services.

The Cisco Network Convergence System (NCS) 540 Series Routers include:

• NCS 540 Small Density Routers: These are compact routers designed for smaller-scale deployments, offering various interface options in a small form factor.
• NCS 540 Medium Density Routers: These routers provide a balance between port density and form factor, suitable for a range of edge and aggregation applications.
• NCS 540 High-Density Routers: These routers are aimed at high-capacity needs, offering greater port density and throughput for demanding environments.
• NCS 540 Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) Routers: These routers are designed to accommodate a range of SFP and SFP+ interfaces, providing flexibility for different optical networking requirements.
• NCS 540 Fixed Chassis Routers: These are nonmodular routers with a fixed set of ports and features, optimized for specific use cases.

Cisco IOS XR offers licensing solutions for you to manage your licenses.

• Smart Licensing: A flexible and convenient cloud-based software licensing model that simplifies the management of software licenses across your organization. It automatically creates a pool of licenses or entitlements for use throughout the organization. With Smart Licensing, you only pay for the features you currently need, with the option to upgrade as necessary, ensuring the security of your investment. For more information, see Smart Licensing.
• Smart Licensing Using Policy: An enhanced version of Smart Licensing that enables immediate use of devices right out of the box. This licensing solution streamlines the process, making it easier to manage your licenses. For more information, see Smart Licensing Using Policy.
• Specific License Reservation (SLR): A solution specifically designed for classified environments where electronic communication is restricted. In such environments, routers are unable to communicate directly with the Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM) or through SSM On-Prem. SLR enables the use of all entitlements on the router without the need for communication with Cisco.
• Smart Licensing Perpetual mode: An operational mode of Smart Licensing Using Policy where compliance and enforcement actions are disabled. This mode applies to perpetual license customers who choose not to deploy Smart Licensing Using Policy registration or reporting workflows. For more information, see Smart Licensing Perpetual mode.

The Flexible Consumption Model (FCM) is a modern licensing framework that enables you to tailor your software expenditures to real-time requirements. It provides the agility to scale software services based on fluctuating business needs, often using a subscription or usage-based payment structure. This approach offers financial flexibility, as you only pay for the software you use, and can quickly adjust subscriptions as the business landscape changes. This model of licensing is available at a low initial investment, provides easy scalability, and allows you to increase consumption of licenses as you expand.

FCM is enabled by default on the NCS 540 Series routers.

The table shows the various Flexible Consumption model licenses for Cisco NCS 540 Series Routers:

Software Innovation Access (SIA) subscription are FCM licenses that provide access to your network's latest software upgrades and features. SIA licenses enable the consumption of Right-to-Use (RTU) licenses for your devices to access software innovation and avail support for your devices throughout the term of subscription.

To ensure network compliance, it is important to use a quantity less than or equal to the total amount of perpetual (RTU) licenses and subscription (SIA) licenses, and report license usage regularly.

The benefits of maintaining network compliance include license pooling, portability of RTU, and access to software upgrades. If the network is out of compliance (OOC), these benefits are restricted.

Network compliance is measured at the virtual account level and enforced based on the product family. For example, consider a virtual account that contains ASR 9000 devices and NCS 540 devices. In this example, the NCS 540 devices are compliant, but one of the ASR 9000 devices uses more SIAs than that are available in the Smart account. Once all granted grace periods are exhausted, the enforcement conditions such as no license pooling, no RTU portability, and software upgrade restriction for all ASR 9000 devices within that virtual account are instituted. In this example, the NCS 540 devices in the same virtual account aren’t impacted by the OOC condition, nor are the other ASR 9000 devices that reside in different virtual accounts.

A product family in a virtual account is considered in compliance when four factors are valid:

1. The devices are registered with the smart licensing server (On-Prem or CSSM).
2. The number of current SIA licenses in use is less than or equal to the number of available SIA licenses in your virtual account.
3. The number of current RTU licenses in use is less than or equal to the number of available RTU licenses in your virtual account.
4. The devices are reporting license usage within 90 days.

Thus, network compliance for a product family in a given virtual account is present when all devices are using no more RTUs & SIAs that have been purchased, and those devices are reporting usage at least every 90 days.