License Management

Overview

Cisco Smart licensing is simple, flexible and a smart way of procuring, deploying and managing licenses in your environment. For more information on smart licensing, see http://www.cisco.com/web/ordering/smart-software-licensing/index.html

Smart Licensing

  • Dynamic licensing. Licenses are associated with products and transferable within the virtual account.

  • No license installation is necessary.

  • License pools are account-specific. Any device in your company can use them.

  • Licenses can be transferred between product instances without any software installation. You can transfer unused licenses from one virtual account to another.

Smart Licensing

Smart licenses are server based licenses. You will purchase, deploy and track licenses for servers instead of domains. Instead of registering individual products with license files or PAKs, Smart Licensing provides the option to create a pool of licenses that can be used across your company's portfolio.

Smart licensing uses Virtual Accounts, Product Instances and Registration Tokens to procure, deploy and manage licenses in your environment.

Cisco UCS Central supports on-premise Smart Licensing by integrating with the Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem (SSM On-Prem) server.

Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem (SSM On-Prem) is an IT Asset Management solution that enables customers to administer Cisco products and licenses on their premises. It is designed as an extension of Cisco Smart Software Manager and provides a similar set of features.

Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem (SSM On-Prem) is an on-premises solution that provides similar features to Cisco Smart Software Manager but is hosted locally rather than on cisco.com. SSM On-Prem has a Licensing Workspace where you can request an account, request access to an existing account, and manage an existing account. SSM On-Prem also has a License workspace where you can track and manage licenses through Smart Licensing.

For more information, see Smart Software Manager On-Prem User Guide.

Virtual Accounts

Virtual accounts are collections of licenses and product instances. You can create virtual accounts in Cisco Smart Software Manager to organize the licenses for your company into logical entities. You can use virtual accounts to organize licenses by business unit, product type, IT group, or whatever makes sense for your organization. For example, if you segregate your company into different geographic regions, you can create a virtual account for each region to hold the licenses and product instances for that region.

All new licenses and product instances are placed in a virtual account. You choose the virtual account when you register a product instance. You can transfer existing licenses or product instances from one virtual account to another.

For more information on creating virtual accounts in Cisco Smart Software Manager, see http://www.cisco.com/web/ordering/smart-software-manager/docs/smart-software-manager-user-guide.pdf.

Product Instances

A Cisco UCS Central product instance has a unique device identifier (UDI) that is registered using a product instance registration token. You can register several instances of a product with a single registration token. Each product instance can have one or more licenses that reside in the same virtual account.

Registration Tokens

Registration tokens are stored in the Product Instance Registration Token Table that is associated with your smart account. After you enable Smart Licensing in Cisco UCS Central, you can generate a new token in a virtual account on the Smart Software Licensing portal to register in Cisco UCS Central.

For more information on creating virtual accounts in Cisco Smart Software Manager, see http://www.cisco.com/web/ordering/smart-software-manager/docs/smart-software-manager-user-guide.pdf.

Obtaining Licenses

To obtain licenses using smart licensing, you will have to do the following:

  • Generate tokens in Cisco Smart Software Manager virtual accounts.

  • Register licenses for product instances in Cisco UCS Central.

The following illustrations explains the smart licensing process:

1

Registration request

The Smart Licensing 90-evaluation period starts when the product instance begins using the licensing feature. It not renewable. When the evaluation period expires, the agent sends a notification to the platform.

2

Authorization renewal

Authorization requests can result in an Authorized or Out of Compliance (OOC) response, or in an error due to a communication failure. Authorization periods are renewed every 30 days as long as authorization requests return Authorized or Out of Compliance (OOC) responses. When the authorization period expires, the agent continues to retry renewal with authorization requests. If successful, a new authorization period starts. If ID cert renewal (authorization renewal) fails, the product instance moves to an Unidentified state and begins consuming the evaluation period.

Enabling Smart Licensing

Before you begin

  • Specify a DNS server.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the System Configuration icon and choose Licenses.

Step 2

Click Enable Smart Software Licensing.

System enables smart licensing and information related to traditional licensing is replaced with smart licensing related information.

Registering UCS Central Using a License Token

Before you begin

Make sure Smart Licensing is enabled.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the System Configuration icon and choose Licenses.

Step 2

Click the Smart Software Manager link to go to the Smart Software Manager portal.

Step 3

In the Smart Software Manager portal:

  1. Select a Cisco UCS Central virtual account.

  2. Click New Token in the Product Instance Registration Tokens panel and select Copy.

Step 4

In the Cisco UCS Central Smart Software Licensing panel, click Register Smart Software Licensing.

Step 5

In the Register Smart Licensing dialog box, enter the following:

  • Cisco Smart Transport URL—Enter the address of Cisco Smart Software Manager production URL or Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem Smart transport URL.

    For the Cisco Smart Software Manager production URL, use: https://smartreceiver.cisco.com/licservice/license

    For the Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem Smart Transport URL, use:

    • https://<SSM ON-PREM-URL>:/SmartTransport

    • http://<SSM ON-PREM-URL>:/SmartTransport

  • HTTP Proxy—Enter the IP address or hostname of the HTTP proxy server.

  • HTTP Proxy Port—Enter the port number for the proxy server.

  • Product Instance Registration Token—Paste the new token you generated.

Step 6

Click Register.

You will receive notifications on registration in progress, successful registration or failure to register.

Renewing Authorization

License authorization is used to show if you have enough licenses for your system, or if you are out of compliance. Authorization is renewed automatically by the Smart Licensing agent every 30 days, provided the network is up and Cisco UCS Central can reach the Smart License server.

If authorization is not renewed for 90 days, the authorization will expire.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the System Configuration icon and choose Licenses.

Step 2

In the Cisco UCS Central Smart Software Licensing panel, click the Tools menu.

Step 3

Select Renew Authorization Now.

Renewing Registration

The agent automatically renews the Smart Software Licensing registration certificate or the ID certificate every six months. Certification lasts for one year. If Cisco UCS Central cannot communicate with the Smart License Server, it may fail to renew the certificate. If this occurs, the certification will revert to evaluation state after one year.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the System Configuration icon and choose Licenses.

Step 2

In the Cisco UCS Central Smart Software Licensing panel, click the Tools menu.

Step 3

Select Renew Registration Now.

Deregistering Smart Software Licensing

When you deregister a product instance from Smart Software Licensing, the product will not be associated with the license. The product will be removed from the list of registered products for the associated virtual account. You can use the license to register another product, or reregister a product that has been deregistered.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the System Configuration icon and choose Licenses.

Step 2

In the Cisco UCS Central Smart Software Licensing panel, click the Tools menu.

Step 3

Select Deregister to remove Cisco UCS Central from Smart Software Manager.

Disabling Smart Software Licensing

If you disable Smart Software Licensing, Cisco UCS Central automatically returns to the Evaluation mode.


Note

Only one licensing mode is supported at a time.

Procedure

Step 1

Click the System Configuration icon and choose Licenses.

Step 2

In the Cisco UCS Central Smart Software Licensing panel, click the Action menu.

Step 3

Select Disable Smart Software Licensing.