Device Administration Licenses
You must convert your existing smart or traditional licenses to the new license type through the Cisco Smart Software Manager
(CSSM), to enable license consumption in Cisco ISE Release 3.0.
From Cisco ISE, Release 2.4, the number of Device Administration licenses must be equal to the number of device administration
nodes (PSNs configured for the device administration service) in a deployment.
If you are currently using a Device Administration license and plan to upgrade to Release 2.4 or above, TACACS+ features will
be supported for 50 Device Administration nodes in Release 2.4 and above.
If you install a PAK generated from a new PID, Device Administration license count is displayed as per the quantity available
in the PAK file. You can add multiple Device Administration licenses to your deployment based on the number of Device Administration
nodes that you require. Evaluation license supports one Device Administration node.
Licenses for VM nodes
Cisco ISE is also shipped as a virtual appliance. For Release 2.4 and above, it is recommended that you install appropriate
VM licenses for the VM nodes in your deployment. You must install the VM licenses based on the number of VM nodes and each
VM node's resources such as CPU and memory. Otherwise, you will receive warnings and notifications to procure and install
the VM license keys in Release 2.4 and later, however, the services are not interrupted.
VM licenses are Infrastructure licenses, therefore, you can install VM licenses irrespective of the endpoint licenses available
in your deployment. You can install a VM license even if you have not installed any Evaluation, Base, Plus, or Apex license
in your deployment. However, in order to use the features enabled by the Base, Plus, or Apex licenses, you must install the
appropriate licenses.
After installing or upgrading to Release 2.4 or above, if there is any mismatch between the number of deployed VM nodes and
installed VM licenses, alarms are displayed in the Alarms dashlet for every 14 days. Alarms are also displayed if there are
any changes in the VM node’s resources or whenever a VM node is registered or deregistered.
VM licenses are perpetual licenses. VM licensing changes are displayed every time you log in to the Cisco ISE GUI, until you
check the Do not show this message again check box in the notification dialog box.
If you have not purchased any ISE VM license before, refer to the ISE Ordering Guide to choose the appropriate VM license to be purchased. If you have purchased ISE VM licenses with no Product Authorization
Key (PAK) associated, you can request VM PAKs by reaching out to licensing@cisco.com with Sales Order numbers that reflect the ISE VM purchase. This request will be processed to provide one medium VM license
key for each ISE VM purchase you made in the past.
VM License Categories
VM licenses are offered under three categories: Small, Medium, and Large. These categories depend on the resources such as
hardware appliances, RAM capacity and number of CPUs. For instance, if you are using 3595 equivalent VM node with 8 cores
and 64-GB RAM, you might need a Medium category VM license, if you want to replicate the same capabilities on the VM. You
need to install multiple VM licenses based on the number of VMs and their resources as per your deployment requirements.
The following table shows the minimum VM resources required for the VM categories:
VM Category
|
VM License Specifications
|
Small
|
|
Medium
|
|
Large
|
-
Minimum 256GB RAM and 16 CPU cores for MnT in clusters supporting more than 500,000 concurrent sessions.
-
Minimum 256GB RAM and 24 CPU cores for SNS-3695 equivalent.
|
For more information about the licenses, see chapter "Cisco ISE Licenses" in the Cisco Identity Services Engine Administrator Guide.