Licensing

Cisco Cyber Vision licenses

Cisco Cyber Vision licenses are a collection of software entitlements required for center operations, sensor hardware appliances, and intrusion detection services.

  • Center licenses

  • Sensor hardware appliance licenses

  • Talos subscriber licenses for intrusion detection

License management and deployment

Manage your Cisco Cyber Vision smart licenses through the Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM), a centralized platform to track and manage all your Cisco licenses. You have real-time visibility into license usage and availability to help easily optimize and scale usage while ensuring compliance.

For more information about the Cisco Cyber Vision license types and how to order them, see the Cisco Cyber Vision Data Sheet .

This document guides you through the registration and activation of the Cisco Cyber Vision Center licenses, Essentials, and Advantage.

You can also use CSSM satellite servers or Specific License Reservations for air-gapped networks that do not have a persistent internet connection.


Note

Specific license reservations require special permissions. Contact your Cisco account manager if you require this license type.

Trial licenses for Cisco Cyber Vision

The evaluation mode is a temporary licensing state that enables full access to Cisco Cyber Vision features for 90 days following a fresh installation.

  • Automatically enabled upon initial installation.

  • Valid for a duration of 90 days.

  • Requires valid license registration after expiration to maintain system access.

Evaluation mode management

To view the status of your evaluation mode, log in to the Cisco Cyber Vision center and navigate to Admin > License . This page displays the remaining days and provides options to register smart licenses.


Note

Once evaluation licenses expire, access is restricted to the License page until valid licenses are registered.

Essentials and advantage licenses

Cisco Cyber Vision Center licenses are available in two tiers, Essentials and Advantage, where the Advantage license includes all features of the Essentials license plus additional advanced capabilities.

Features enabled by the Cisco Cyber Vision Essentials license include:

  • Inventory : Device inventory, identify communication patterns, and generate inventory reports.

  • Vulnerability : Identify device vulnerabilities and generate vulnerability reports.

  • Activities : Track control system events and generate device activity reports.

  • RESTful API : REST API programming interface.

Features enabled by the Cisco Cyber Vision Advantage license include all Essentials features, plus:

  • Security posture : Device Risk Scoring.

  • Intrusion detection : Snort IDS on supported sensors and Talos community signatures.

  • Behavior monitoring : Create baselines for asset behaviors and alerts on deviations.

  • Advanced integrations : XDR Ribbon, pxGrid integration with Cisco ISE, Firepower Host Attribute integration, SIEM Integration (Splunk, IBM QRadar), and ServiceNow OT Management integration.

Licenses for Intrusion Detection System (IDS) components

This reference provides the license IDs and their corresponding purposes for Cyber Vision IDS components, including hardware and virtual appliances.

License ID

Purpose of License

CV-IDS-CNTR

Talos subscriber rules license for Cyber Vision Center IDS (hardware and virtual appliance)

CV-IDS-IC3000

Talos subscriber rules license for Cyber Vision IDS on IC3000-2C2F-K9 sensors

CV-IDS-IR8300

Talos subscriber rules license for Cyber Vision IDS on Cisco Catalyst IR8300 sensors

CV-IDS-C9000

Talos subscriber rules license for Cyber Vision IDS on Cisco Catalyst 9300, 9300X, or 9400 sensors

Cisco Smart Software Manager satellite for air-gapped networks

A Cisco Smart Software Manager satellite is an on-premises server that provides a subset of Cisco Smart Software Manager functionality for networks without direct Internet access.

  • Operates within air-gapped environments.

  • Requires periodic synchronization with the Cisco portal.

  • Maintains updated license purchase and utilization data.

Satellite synchronization requirements

The satellite server must communicate with the Cisco Smart Software Manager periodically to remain operational. Users must synchronize the satellite server with the Cisco portal to ensure that the most recent license purchase and utilization data are updated in both systems.

For additional guidance, refer to General CSSM On-Prem Help

Register the license for Cyber Vision Center

Register your Cyber Vision Center with Cisco licensing servers to activate your licensed features.

Before you begin

Procedure

Step 1

From the Cyber Vision Center main menu, choose Admin > License.

Step 2

Click View/Edit next to Transport Settings to select a connection method:

  • Select Direct to connect to Cisco licensing servers through a direct HTTP connection (persistent internet required).

  • Select Transport Gateway to connect to Cisco licensing servers through Transport Gateway. In the URL field, enter the Smart Transport Registration URL you copied from Cisco Software Central.


Note

To connect to Cisco licensing servers through a proxy server, configure the proxy settings required for your connection method. These settings are available in the New UI. See Configure a proxy server.

Step 3

Click OK.

Step 4

Click Register and enter the Product Instance Registration Tokens obtained from your Cisco Software Central account.

Step 5

Click Register to complete the license registration.

Cyber Vision Center is activated.

What to do next

  • To verify registration status, navigate to Admin > License in the Status area. The status shows Registered and displays license expiration details.

  • To troubleshoot license reporting or usage issues, you can reregister licenses on the same page. Click Actions and select Reregister, then generate a new registration token and repeat the registration steps.

  • To deregister licenses, select Deregister from the Actions menu. Deregistration returns Cyber Vision Center to evaluation mode, and you may lose access if the evaluation period has expired.

Use specific license reservation

Specific license reservation is a smart licensing method that you can use when your organization's security requirements do not allow a persistent connection between Cisco Cyber Vision center and the Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM). Specific license reservation allows you to reserve license entitlements on a center.

The process to create and register a specific license reservation spans across Cisco Cyber Vision center and Cisco Software Manager.

If you don't want to proceed with the license reservation after you generate the reservation request code in Cisco Cyber Vision center, in the License page, click Cancel Reservation Code .

If you lose the reservation request code you created in Cisco Cyber Vision center, in the License page, click View Reservation Request Code .

Before you begin

Specific License Reservation is not available by default. If you want to use this licensing method, contact your Cisco account team to get the permission to use specific license reservation. After you licensing method is granted, you can carry out the following task to register specific license reservation on your Cisco Cyber Vision center.

Follow these steps to use specific license reservation.

Procedure

Step 1

In the Cisco Cyber Vision center, choose Admin > License, and click Register.

Step 2

In the statement If your Smart Account is authorized for License Reservation and you wish to reserve licenses, start here. , click start here .

Step 3

Click Yes, My Smart Account is License Reservation Enabled .

Step 4

Click Generation Reservation Request Code .

Step 5

To copy the reservation code, click Save to File or Copy to clipboard .

Step 6

Log in to Cisco Software Manager, and perform the following:

  1. From the main menu, choose Smart Software Manager > Manage Licenses.

  2. Choose Inventory > Licenses to view your purchased smart licenses.

  3. Click License Reservation .

    A Smart License Reservation workflow dialog box is displayed.

  4. In the Step 1: Enter Request Code tab, in the field that is displayed, enter the reservation code you received from Cisco Cyber Vision center, and click Next.

  5. In the Step 2: Select Licenses tab, click the Reserve a specific license radio button. Then, in the Reserve column of the table displayed, for each license type, enter the number of license entitlements you want to reserve.

    1. Click the Reserve a specific license radio button.

    2. In the Reserve column of the table displayed, for each license type, enter the number of license entitlements you want to reserve.

    3. Click Next .

  6. In the Step 3: Review and Confirm tab, review the details of your specific license reservation, and click Generate Authorization Code .

  7. The Step 4: Authorization Code tab contains a field that displays the authorization code in the XML format. This XML content includes information about the license reservation and the Cisco Cyber Vision center for which the SLR is generated. Click Download As File to download the .txt file to your local system.

  8. In the License page of your Cisco Cyber Vision center, click Enter Reservation Authorization Code.

  9. Paste the contents of the .txt file in the text box, or click Upload and choose the .txt file that you downloaded from Cisco Software Manager, and click Install Authorization Code/File .

Update specific license reservation

If you need to update the details of your specific license reservation, create a new reservation code in Cisco Software Central. Then, register the license reservation through the Cisco Cyber Vision center.

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to Cisco Software Manager, and from the main menu, choose Smart Software Manager > Manage Licenses .

Step 2

Choose Inventory > Product Instances to view the product instances that report license usage to Cisco Software Central.

Step 3

Find the Cisco Cyber Vision center for which you want to update the license reservation, and click the Actions drop-down menu in the same row.

Step 4

Click Update Reserved Licenses .

Step 5

In the Step 1: Select Licenses tab, perform the following:

  1. click the Reserve a specific license radio button.

  2. In the Reserve column of the table displayed, for each license type, enter the number of license entitlements you want to reserve.

  3. Click Next .

Step 6

In the Step 2: Review and Confirm tab, review the details of your specific license reservation, and click Generate Authorization Code .

Step 7

The Step 3: Authorization Code tab contains a field that displays the authorization code in the XML format. This XML content includes information about the license reservation and the Cisco Cyber Vision center for which the SLR is generated. Click Download As File to download the .txt file to your local system.

Step 8

In the Cisco Cyber Vision center, choose Admin > License, and click Update Reservation . .

Step 9

Enter the authorization code for the updated license reservation, and click Register.

Return specific license reservation

When you return a specific license reservation, the reserved licenses are released and available in your smart licensing account for reuse. You can use them as smart licenses or as part of another license reservation.

Procedure

Step 1

In the Cisco Cyber Vision center, choose Admin > License .

Step 2

Click Return Reserved Licenses .

Step 3

Click Generate Reservation Return Code .

Step 4

Copy the code displayed in the text box, and then click Return License.

Step 5

Log in to Cisco Software Manager, and from the main menu, choose Smart Software Manager > Manage Licenses .

Step 6

Choose Inventory > Product Instances to view the product instances that report license usage to Cisco Software Central.

Step 7

From the Actions drop-down list for your specifc license reservation, choose Remove .

Step 8

Enter the reservation return code that you copied in Step 4, from Cisco Cyber Vision center.

Step 9

Click Remove Product Instance .

Managed Services License Agreement

Managed Services License Agreement (MSLA) is a post-paid utility service model for network providers who are Cisco partners. Through the MSLA licensing method, you pay for what you use, at the end of a monthly billing cycle. The provider holds the license entitlements and can enable or register licenses for multiple customers' centers.

In a Cisco Cyber Vision center that uses a MSLA license, you must set the center to utility mode. In the Admin > License page of the center, from the Actions drop-down list, choose Change Utility Mode.

There is no difference in the license registration process through the Cisco Cyber Vision center. For more information regarding MSLA licenses, see Register the license for Cyber Vision Center.

License usage compliance

Cisco Cyber Vision Essentials and Advantage licenses are term subscriptions that require renewal to maintain feature access and product support.

  • Licenses are available for 1, 3, 5, or 7-year terms.

  • Expired licenses trigger alerts in the Cisco Cyber Vision center.

  • Noncompliance may restrict user access to the License page while maintaining existing network configurations.

License noncompliance scenarios

Access to the Cisco Cyber Vision center is restricted to the License page under the following conditions:

  • The evaluation license has expired.

  • A specific license reservation is returned without other valid licenses registered.

  • Essentials or Advantage licenses expire while using the Cisco Smart Software satellite connection method.


Note

If IDS licenses expire or overconsumption occurs because IDS is enabled on more sensors than licensed, a warning message appears in the Cisco Cyber Vision center until the issue is resolved.