Cisco IOS XR Software - Cisco NCS 5500 Series Routers Licensing Quick Reference

Licensing for Cisco IOS XR Routers

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.

Cisco Network Convergence System 5500 Series and 5700 Series Routers

The Cisco Network Convergence System (NCS) 5500 Series Routers are designed to deliver high-density, high-performance routing for large enterprise networks, web, service provider WAN and aggregation networks. These routers offer an industry-leading density of routed 400-Gigabit Ethernet (400GE), 100 GE ports for high-scale WAN aggregation. The NCS 5500 Series is designed to scale between data centers and large enterprises.

The Cisco NCS 5500 Series routers includes:

NCS 5501 and NCS 5501-SE Routers: These 1RU routers offer high-density 10/25/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet ports, designed for flexible deployment in various network scenarios.
NCS 5502 and NCS 5502-SE Routers: These 2RU routers provide increased port density and throughput, suitable for demanding aggregation and provider edge roles.
NCS 5508 and NCS 5508-SE Routers: These 8-slot chassis routers offer high scalability and performance, with support for a wide range of modular line cards.
NCS 5516 and NCS 5516-SE Routers: These 16-slot chassis routers are designed for even higher scalability and capacity, ideal for core network deployments and high-density environments.

The Cisco Network Convergence System (NCS) 5700 Series is a family of routers designed for network service providers and large enterprise applications. The Cisco NCS 5700 series fixed-port routers provide aggregation, distributed core, and peering fabric. These routers are part of Cisco's Service Provider portfolio and are engineered to handle the massive amounts of data traffic generated by services such as mobile, video, and cloud applications.

The Cisco NCS 5700 Series routers include:

Cisco NCS-57C1: The NCS-57C1 routers provide a power-efficient package with 4 Terabits total port bandwidth and 2.4 Terabits forwarding capacity.
Cisco NCS-57C3-MOD: The NCS-57C3-MOD routers provide a power-efficient package with up to 2.4 Terabits of optimized forwarding capacity.
Cisco NCS-57B1: The NCS-57B1 routers provide a power-efficient package with 4.8 Terabits of 400GE/100GE optimized forwarding capacity. For more information, see Hardware Installation Guide for Cisco NCS 5700 Series Fixed-Port Routers.

Licensing Solutions and Offerings

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.

Key Differences between Licensing Solutions

**Available Licensing Solutions**
License Attributes	Smart Licensing Using Policy	Smart Licensing	Specific License Reservation
Activation of licenses	Creates a trust relationship with CSSM	Registers with CSSM	Generates code from the device to reserve licenses in CSSM
Supported deployments	SSM On-Prem or CSLU deployment Direct deployments Offline deployment	SSM On-Prem deployment Direct deployment Offline deployment	Offline deployment for air-gapped environments
License communication transport mode	On-Premises Deployments: cslu transport (default) Direct Deployments: Call Home, Smart Transport (recommended) Offline Deployments: off	On-Premises Deployments: Call Home Direct Deployments: Call Home, Smart Transport Offline Deployments: off	Not applicable for SLR
License reporting	Generates RUM reports from the device and synchronizes with CSSM	Generates Product Instance reports from CSSM or SSM On-Prem	Not applicable for SLR

Note

Starting with Release 25.3.1, IOS XR software no longer supports Call Home transport mode. Please configure CSLU or Smart Transport mode to ensure seamless operation of the licensing solution.

What are the Flexible Consumption Models?

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.

To enable Flexible Consumption model licensing on NCS 5500 Series routers, use the license smart flexible-consumption enable command. See Enable FCM.

Key Features of FCM

Pay-as-you-grow: Enables you to lower initial costs and add more capacity over time.
Simplify operations: FCM delivers the carrier-class IOS-XR software feature set with two software suites, Essentials and Advantage, that simplify license management.
Utilize capital efficiently: License pooling enables an efficient way to share licenses across the network.
Protect investment: Software portability provides investment protection by enabling porting of licenses to next-generation hardware. For more information, see Cisco IOS XR Software Flexible Consumption Model Data Sheet.

Smart Licensing, Smart Licensing Using Policy and Flexible Consumption Model

Flexible Consumption Model (FCM) is a consumption model that lets you pay for software based on actual use, offering flexibility and cost efficiency.

The Smart Licensing and Smart Licensing Using Policy solutions facilitate FCM by providing a centralized way to manage licenses with ease. Combined, they deliver a user-friendly and adaptable licensing system.

FCM requires Smart Licensing registration and license usage reporting. A network under FCM is considered compliant if the FCM-enabled devices in the network are registered to Smart Licensing and are reporting the usage.

Similarly, FCM requires devices enabled with Smart Licensing Using Policy to have trust enablement and generate the first license usage report within 90 days.

Flexible Consumption model licenses are checked for usage on a daily basis. The daily license usage is reported to the Smart Licensing Manager at Cisco.com.

In short, the FCM adjusts software costs to actual usage, while Smart Licensing streamlines license management. Together, they provide a flexible and simplified licensing approach.

Comparison of FCM models and license suites

Components of FCM licensing

Both FCM 1 and FCM 2 comprise of these components:

The hardware.
The perpetual software component, known as Right To Use (RTU), which provides indefinite software licensing.
The recurring software component, known as Software Innovation Access (SIA), which allows continuous software upgrades, license pooling, and faster access to new features for the subscription term.

For FCM 1, some product families may include, optional, a-la-carte software perpetual licenses for specialized platform-specific features.

Flexible Consumption Model — Components of FCM

License suite tiers

FCM follows a hierarchical structure where each higher-tier license encompasses the features and capabilities of the lower tiers.

Essentials suite: The foundational tier, offering basic features and capabilities. The Essentials license suite serves fundamental transport needs. It includes the IOS XR comprehensive suite of routing and management services.
Advantage suite: This tier includes everything in the Essentials tier, plus additional advanced features. The Advantage license suite enhances applications and network resilience. It includes all features of Essentials Software licenses with extra advanced routing and management services.

All license suites use a nested structure, wherein each higher-tier suite includes the features and capabilities of the tiers below it.

RTU Licenses

RTU (Right-to-Use) licenses are software licenses that grant customers the flexibility to scale functionality incrementally, ensuring customers pay only for what they use, especially when enabling features like advanced networking, higher bandwidth, or optical interfaces.

These are the types of RTU licenses.

Essential licenses: These are the base licenses that are required by every active port for its operation. For example, An example of Essential license is ESS-ED-100G-RTU1.
Advantage (earlier known as Advanced licenses) without essential licenses: These licenses are required on top of Essential Licenses for ports that use advanced features like L3VPN. An example of an advantage license is ADV-400G-RTU-1.
Advantage with essential combination licenses: These licenses are packaged together as a combined entitlement. Example of an advantage license with essentials is ADN-100G-RTU-1
Tracking licenses: These licenses are required for hardware operation. An example of a tracking license is NCS-5501-TRK.

Enable FCM

Step 1

Use the license smart flexible-consumption enable command to enable FCM model on the device.

Router(config)# license smart flexible-consumption enable 
Router(config)# commit

Alternatively, use the YANG data model Cisco-IOS-XR-smart-license-cfg to enable FCM:


<rpc xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" message-id="101">
  <get-config>
    <source>
      <running/>
    </source>
    <filter>
      <licensing xmlns="http://cisco.com/ns/yang/Cisco-IOS-XR-smart-license-cfg">
        <flex-consumption/>
      </licensing>
    </filter>
  </get-config>
</rpc>

Step 2

Use the show running-config license smart flexible-consumption enable command to verify theFCM configuration.

Router# show running-config license smart flexible-consumption enable

Flexible Consumption Model Licenses

The table shows the various Flexible Consumption model licenses for NCS 5500 Series and NCS 5700 Series routers.

**Flexible Consumption Model Licenses Usage Pattern**
License Name	Hardware Supported	Consumption Pattern
Essential and Advanced Licenses: ESS-100G-RTU-1 ESS-400G-RTU-1 ADV-100G-RTU-1 ADV-400G-RTU-1	Routers with fixed chassis unit: NCS 5501, NCS 5501-SE NCS 5502, NCS 5502-SE NCS 55A1-24H NCS-55A1-24Q6H-S, NCS-55A1-24Q6H-SS NCS 55A1-36H-S, NCS-55A1-36H-SE-S NCS-55A1-48Q6H NCS-55A2-MOD-S, , NCS-55A2-MOD-SE-S, NCS-55A2-MOD-SE-H-S NCS-55A2-MOD-HD-S NCS-57B1-6D24H, NCS-57B1-5D24H-SE NCS-57C1-48Q6D NCS-57D2-18DD Routers with modular chassis unit: NCS 5504 NCS 5508 NCS-5516 Line cards: NC-55-36X100G, NC-55-36X100G-S NC-55-36X100GA-SE NC-55-18H18F NC-55-24H12F-SE NC-55-24X100G-SE NC55-MOD-A-S, NC55-MOD-A-S-SE-S NC55-32T16Q4H-A NC55-6X200-DWDM-S NC57-24DD NC57-18DD-SE NC57-36H-SE NC57-36H6D-S NC57-MOD-S NC57-48Q2D-S, NC57-48Q2D-S-SE-S	The number of essential or advanced licenses consumed depends on the number of active ports and is reported on a per chassis basis.
Hardware Tracking Licenses: These licenses are for the chassis. NCS-5501-TRK NCS-5501-SE-TRK NCS-5502-TRK NCS-5502-SE-TRK NCS-5504-TRK NCS-5508-TRK NCS-5516-TRK NCS-55A1-24H-TRK NCS-55A1-36H-TRK NCS-55A1-36HS-TRK NCS-55A1-48Q6H-TRK NCS-55A2-MOD-TRK NCS-55A2-MODH-TRK NCS-55A2-MODS-TRK NCS-55A1-24Q6-TRK NCS_57D2_18DD_TRK	Tracking licenses are named based on the hardware supported. For example, NCS-5501-TRK licenses support NCS 5501 systems.	The number of licenses consumed depends on the number of chassis in use.
Hardware Tracking Licenses: These licenses for the line cards. NC55-36H-LC-TRK NC55-36HSE-LC-TRK NC55-18HF-LC-TRK NC55-24H12-LC-TRK NC55-24HSE-LC-TRK NC55-DWDM-LC-TRK NC55-MOD-A-SE-TRK NC-55-MOD-A-TRK NC55-18D12TH SE-LC-TRK NC55-24D-LC-TRK	Tracking licenses are named based on the line card supported. For example, NC55-36H-LC-TRK licenses support NC-55-36X100G line cards.	The number of licenses consumed depends on the number of line cards in use.
Software Tracking license: XR-6.3-TRK XR-6.5-TRK XR-6.6-TRK	Tracking licenses are named based on the software supported. For example, the XR-6.3-TRK license supports IOS XR 6.3.x software image.	The number of licenses consumed depends on the software images used.

Guidelines

These are the guidelines for deploying licenses on the Cisco 5500 and 5700 Series routers.

Starting with Release 24.3.1, tracking licenses are no longer used.
The CSSM smart license hierarchy applies to the Right-to-Use (RTU) licenses only. Therefore, if there’s an insufficient RTU 100G license, CSSM converts the RTU 400G license into four RTU 100G licenses. This isn’t applicable for SIA licenses.

FCM license consumption rules

Understanding the FCM license consumption rules helps you calculate the number of licenses required for your device.

FCM 1 licensing includes these types of feature licenses:

Per-system feature licenses: These licenses apply to the entire router and are consumed based on the total number of active interfaces for that feature. All active interfaces collectively consume these licenses.
Per-port feature licenses: These licenses apply to specific interfaces on which the corresponding feature is configured and active.

Calculate per-system and per-port feature license consumption

The router calculates per-system and per-port feature license consumption based on feature priority and bandwidth. Follow this procedure to calculate the number of per-system and per-port licenses consumed by your device.

Step 1

Obtain the total count of interfaces that consume per-system and per-port licenses from these tables listed by feature priority.

When multiple features operate on the same interface, the router applies a priority order. Count only the highest priority feature for license consumption by that interface.

These tables list the features in the priority order that the router follows, with per-system features having a higher priority over per-port features:

**Steps to obtain the interface count for per-system features**
If you have configured ...	Then ...
Service Layer API	Run the show service-layer state \| include config on command. Include all the interfaces that are in Up state.
Peering scale	Ensure that you have not configured Service Layer API on the router. For IPv4 routes, run the show route ipv4 summary command and ensure the Total count is greater than 512000. For IPv6 routes, run the show route ipv6 summary command and ensure the Total count is greater than 50000. Include all the interfaces that are in Up state.

**Steps to obtain the interface count for per-port features**
If you have configured ...	Then ...
SRTE i.e. MPLS with SRV6 Traffic Engineering	Ensure that you have not configured Peering scale and Service Layer API on the router. Run the show running-config \| beginning mpls traffic-eng command and ensure the count is greater than 512000. Run the show running-config command and check for lines that begin with segment-routing traffic-eng and followed by policy , on-demand , srv6 , or pcc . Run the show operational MPLS_LSD InterfaceTable json command. Consider all interfaces in the InterfaceTable where InterfaceState is MGMT_LSD_INTF_STATE_UP . Run the show operational SRv6 Active LocatorAllSIDTable json command. Consider all interfaces in LocatorAllSID where SIDContextType is UA_PSP_USD or EndXWithPSP_USD .
L3VPN	Ensure that you have not configured Peering scale and Service Layer API on the router. Run the show rsi vrf all \| include Configured command and ensure the count is greater than 8. Run the show ip interface brief command and count the interfaces where vrf-name is not default .
MACsec	Run the show macsec mka interface command and count all the interfaces. Exclude any interface that is already counted as part of the earlier listed features.
EVPN	Run the show evpn summary \| include Number of Remote IMCAST Routes command to ensure the count is greater than 0. Identify the bridge-domain names from the output of show evpn evi detail command for all the EVIs that are tagged as EVPN or MPLS . Enter the bridge-domain names in the show l2vpn bridge-domain bd-name `bridge-domain name` command to identify the interfaces associated with each bridge-domain. Exclude any interface that is already counted as part of the earlier listed features.
VPLS	Run the show l2vpn bridge-domain summary \| include Number of PWs command to ensure the count of pseudowires that are Up is greater than 0. Identify all the interfaces from the List of ACs in the output of show l2vpn bridge-domain command. Exclude any interface that is already counted as part of the earlier listed features.
VPWS	Run the show l2vpn xconnect brief command to ensure the Total count that are Up is greater than 0. Run the show l2vpn xconnect detail command to identify all the interfaces marked as state is up from the Groups and AC listed. Exclude any interface that is already counted as part of the earlier listed features.
L2VPN	Include all the interfaces listed in the output of show running-config l2vpn command. Note L2VPN for Integrated Routing and Bridging (IRB) requires Essential license. Advantage license is not required as it is included in the port capacity.
Capacity	Include all the interfaces listed in the output of show ip interface brief command.

Step 2

Calculate the total bandwidth for per-system and per-port features from the number of interfaces obtained in the previous step.

Step 3

Apply these bandwidth rules to obtain the number of per-system and per-port feature licenses consumed by your device.

Software Innovation Access

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.

Benefits of SIA Licenses

Access to software innovation: provides access to continuous software upgrades which contain latest features, security enhancements, and bug fixes for all your devices at a network level.
Pooling of licenses: enables Right-to-Use (RTU) licenses to be shared across your FCM network from a common license pool through the virtual account.
Protects your investment: enables the portability of perpetual RTU licenses purchased for your current device to a next-generation router when you expand or upgrade your network.

Types of SIA Licenses

The types of SIA licenses are

Essential SIA license
Advantage SIA license

SIA License Term

The initial term of a SIA subscription is for a term of three years. You can renew the subscription by contacting your Cisco account representative. An equal number of SIA licenses and corresponding RTU licenses are required to enjoy the benefits, and ensure that your network is in compliance.

If your device is in a state of SIA Out-of-Compliance (OOC) the benefits cease.

Managing SIA Entitlements

SIA entitlement management manages software upgrades for FCM. Software upgrades are possible when the device is in an In-Compliant State.

The table shows the SIA Compliance factors and its states.

**SIA Compliance and SIA States**
Compliance	SIA In-Compliance State	SIA Out-of-Compliance State
License Usage Consumption	The device consumes fewer licenses than purchased.	The number of SIA licenses consumed exceeds the number of SIA licenses purchased. OOC can also occur when the RTU licenses consumed is higher than the number of SIA licenses purchased.
Reporting	The device reports regularly.	The term of the SIA license expires and you haven’t renewed the subscription.
Grace Period	NA	The SIA License Grace period of 90 days expires.
License Authorization Status	NA	License Authorization Status is: Not Authorized: The license authorization code doesn’t contain sufficient counts for the request. This can occur when you attempt to use more licenses than the licenses available in your Virtual Account. Authorization Expired: The device hasn’t been able to connect to CSSM for an extended period, due to which the authorization status couldn’t be verified.

When the device enters an OOC state, a grace period of 90 days (cumulative of all the previous occurrences) begins. During this period, SIA license benefits can still be availed. The system attempts to renew the authorization period by connecting with the CSSM during the grace period, or even after the grace period has expired. If an attempt isn’t successful, it remains in an OOC state. If the attempt is successful, a new authorization period begins and the device is In-Compliance.

When are Software Upgrades Blocked?

A software upgrade for a device is blocked in these situations.

Software upgrades are blocked for all devices in the product family in the virtual account when the devices are Out-of-Compliance.
Software upgrades are blocked when the device does not report within 90 days.

Usage Guidelines for Device Compliance

These are the guidelines for device compliance.

**Device Compliance**
If...	Then...
the SIA license grace period has expired	register your device with CSSM.
the SIA license has expired or the number of SIA licenses consumed is more than the number of SIA licenses that are purchased	contact your Cisco Account Representative to purchase or renew the required license.
the authorization code has insufficient counts for the request	generate the code with sufficient counts.
the authorization has expired	connect the device with CSSM.

Note

When you order SIA5 licenses in CSSM, your device may still display SIA3 in the output of the show license command. However, CSSM enforces license compliance based on the SIA5 entitlement. You can validate your device against the SIA5 entitlement in CSSM, even if the device shows SIA3 locally.

Verify the Compliance Status

Verify the device compliance status, using the show license platform summary command.

Examples

Status: In-Compliance

Router# show license platform summary              
Fri Feb 12 20:33:51.784 UTC
Collection: LAST: Fri Feb 12 2021 20:33:46 UTC
NEXT: Fri Feb 12 2021 20:35:46 UTC
Reporting: LAST: Fri Feb 12 2021 20:33:46 UTC
NEXT: Fri Feb 12 2021 20:35:46 UTC
SIA Status: In Compliance
   			       Count
Feature/Area Entitlement Last Next
============ =================================================== ==== ====
FCM NCS 5500 Core & Agg Netw SW&Autom Ess(100G) 1.0 Per 1 0
FCM Core & Aggr Essentials SIA per 100G 1 0
FCM 5501 SE Base Hardware Tracking PID 1 0

Status: Out-of-Compliance (Grace Period Remaining)

Router# show license platform summary        
Mon Mar 30 04:01:50.405 IST
Collection: LAST: Mon Mar 30 2020 04:01:12 IS
            NEXT: Mon Mar 30 2020 04:02:12 IST
Reporting:  LAST: Mon Mar 30 2020 04:01:12 IST
            NEXT: Mon Mar 30 2020 04:03:12 IST
**********************************IMPORTANT************************************
SIA Status: Out of Compliance(Remaining Grace Period: 89 days, 23 hours)
            Number of SIA license(s) used is more than available. 
            SW Upgrade will be allowed as SIA Grace Period is remaining
**********************************************************************************
                                                                   Count
Feature/Area     Entitlement                                     Last Next
================ =============================================== ==== ====
FCM           NCS 5500 Core & Agg Netw SW&Autom Ess(100G) 1.0    2    0
FCM           Essential SIA License                              2    0
FCM           Total NC-55-18H18F LCs in the system               1    0
FCM           5508 Base Hardware Tracking PID                    1    0

Status: Out-of-Compliance (Grace Period expired and upgrades are blocked)

Router# show license platform summary                  
Mon Mar 30 04:41:02.036 IST
Collection: LAST: Mon Mar 30 2020 04:40:12 IST
            NEXT: Mon Mar 30 2020 04:41:12 IST
Reporting:  LAST: Mon Mar 30 2020 04:39:12 IST
            NEXT: Mon Mar 30 2020 04:41:12 IST
**********************************IMPORTANT************************************
SIA Status: Out of Compliance(Grace Period Expired)
            SW Upgrades are blocked as SIA license(s) are in Not Authorized state
*******************************************************************************
                                                                   Count
Feature/Area     Entitlement                                     Last Next
================ =============================================== ==== ====
FCM           NCS 5500 Core & Agg Netw SW&Autom Ess(100G) 1.0    2    2
FCM           Essential SIA License                              2    2

Achieving and Maintaining Network Licenses Compliance

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:

The devices are registered with the smart licensing server (On-Prem or CSSM).
The number of current SIA licenses in use is less than or equal to the number of available SIA licenses in your virtual account.
The number of current RTU licenses in use is less than or equal to the number of available RTU licenses in your virtual account.
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.

Revision History

**Feature History Table**
Feature Name	Release Information	Feature Description
Smart Licensing Perpetual Mode	Release 25.4.1	Smart Licensing Perpetual Mode simplifies licensing operations for customers with full-capacity perpetual licenses that cover the entire chassis or all line cards. These customers do not need to enable Smart Licensing Using Policy or report usage, which reduces administrative overhead across these deployments.
Smart Licensing Using Policy	Release 24.1.1	Cisco Smart Licensing Using Policy (SLP) is an enhancement to the existing Cisco Smart Licensing model. It streamlines the licensing process for Cisco IOS XR products by introducing a more flexible and automated approach. With SLP, you no longer need to register your device during installation, and there is no evaluation license state or period.
Cisco Smart Licensing on QDD-400G-ZR-S, QDD-400G-ZRP-S, and DP04QSDD-HE0 Optics	Release 7.10.1	Support for Smart Licensing is now extended to the hardware having following optics: QDD-400G-ZR-S QDD-400G-ZRP-S DP04QSDD-HE0
Flexible Consumption Model support on NC57-48Q2D-S and NC57-48Q2D-SE-S	Release 7.10.1	Flexible Consumption Model support on Line cards. NC57-48Q2D-S NC57-48Q2D-SE-S
Flexible Consumption Model on NCS-57D2-18DD-SYS	Release 7.8.1	Flexible Consumption Model (FCM) is now extended to the NCS-57D2-18DD-SYS chassis.
Smart Licensing on NCS-57D2-18DD-SYS	Release 7.8.1	Cisco Smart Licensing is a cloud-based, flexible and automated software licensing model that enables you to activate and manage Cisco software licenses across your organization. Smart Licensing solution allows you to easily track the status of your license and software usage trends. Smart Licensing is now supported on the NCS-57D2-18DD-SYS chassis.
Smart Licensing Per Port for Segment Routing-Traffic Engineering	Release 7.8.1	Cisco Smart Licensing is a cloud-based, flexible software licensing model that enables you to activate and manage Cisco software licenses across your organization. Under the Flexible Consumption Model, we have Advantage licenses which are required on top of Essential Licenses for ports that use advanced features like L3VPN. This release allows you to allocate the Advantage licenses to the Segment Routing Traffic Engineering (SR-TE) based on the active ports under MPLS or SRV6. Before this release, when you configured SR-TE, all the ports used to consume Advantage licenses. This allows you to manage advantage licenses for SR-TE.
Flexible Consumption Model support on NCS-57C3-MOD, NCS-57C3-MODS and NC57-36H6D-LC	Release 7.4.1	Flexible Consumption Model support onLine cards. NCS-57C3-MOD NCS-57C3-MODS NC57-36H6D-LC
Essential and Advantage smart licenses in a combined entitlement	Release 7.4.1	With this release, the Advanced licenses are now referred to as the Advantage licenses, without essential entitlement. Also, a new license model – Advantage with Essentials, has been introduced that contains both Essential and Advantage licenses as a combined entitlement in a single PID. This simplifies the license procurement and management effort by eliminating the need to procure separate PIDs for Essential and Advantage licenses.
Flexible Consumption Model (FCM) licensing on NCS-57B1-6D24-SYS and NCS-57B1-5DSE-SYS	Release 7.3.1	Support for FCM licensing is now extended to the following chassis: NCS-57B1-6D24-SYS NCS-57B1-5DSE-SYS
Software Innovation Access (SIA) Entitlement	Release 7.3.1	SIA license grants you access to the latest software upgrades which contain new features, bug fixes, and security enhancements for devices on your network. Also, it enables the consumption of Advantage and Essential Right-to-Use (RTU) licenses on your device, and allows portability of these RTU licenses from one device to another.
Specific License Reservation	Release 7.3.1	Specific License Reservation is a solution designed for classified environments that don’t allow electronic communication in or out of the environment.
Support for Flexible Consumption Model on Cisco NC57-36H-SE and Cisco NC-55-32T16Q4H-A line cards, and the Cisco NCS-55A1-24Q6H-SS fixed chassis	Release 7.2.2	Support for Flexible Consumption Model (FCM) is now extended to NC57-36H-SE and NC-55-32T16Q4H-A line cards Cisco NCS-55A1-24Q6H-SS chassis
Flexible Consumption License Model	Release 6.5.2	Introduction of Flexible Consumption License Model. The Flexible Consumption Model (FCM) provides the capability and flexibility to purchase software capacity as needed.
Smart Licensing	Release 6.3.2	Smart Licensing is a cloud-based, flexible software licensing model that enables you to activate and manage Cisco software licenses across their organization. Smart Licensing solution allows you to easily track the status of your license and software usage trends.

Cisco NCS 5500 Series Routers Licensing Quick Reference

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