License Planning

Prerequisite

This chapter provides a high-level overview of the planning that must be done prior to acquiring and activating licenses for applications and management components running on HCS. This plan covers:

  • Identifying licenses that must be ordered for HCS
  • Planning for other components or pieces that are not supported by Cisco Prime License Manager
  • Determining the costs of licensing, and how those costs impact decision-making

License planning involves the following steps:

  1. Determine data center infrastructure licenses.
  2. Determine data center storage licenses.
  3. Determine VMware licenses.
  4. Determine UC Application licenses.
  5. Determine HCS for Contact Center licenses.
  6. Determine Third Party software licenses.
  7. Determine HCS Management licenses.
  8. Determine Cisco Expressway licenses.
  9. Determine Rich Media Session licenses.
  10. Determine Cisco Jabber Guest Server licenses.
  11. License activation considerations.

For more information on Licensing for Cisco HCS, see Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution Release 12.5 License Management

License Planning Workflow

Related Documentation

Refer to the following document for further information about related licensing applications and products:

  • Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution Release 12.5 Solution Reference Network Design Guide

License Planning Considerations

This section describes about the different license manager.

HCS License Manager (HLM) Planning Considerations

HCS License Manager (HLM) is an HCM-F service that provides centralized license management for HCS. HLM extends the functionality of Prime License Manager beyond the scope of one enterprise for use by service providers. HLM is used to assign each customer and its clusters to an Prime License Manager. HLM aggregates license usage by each cluster from each Prime License Manager into a License Summary report. In HCS 10.0(1) and later, Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unity Connection are the only UC applications supported by HLM.

Consider the steps in the following procedure for HLM planning:

  • Use one HLM for each installation of HCS.

  • Set up each Prime License Manager in the HLM.

  • Load HCS licenses on a Prime License Manager before configuring the Prime License Manager on an HLM

  • When new customers are onboarded, they and their clusters must be assigned to an Prime License Manager through the HLM. Do not use the native management interface of Prime License Manager to assign a cluster. Always use the HLM to assign clusters to a Prime License Manager.

Prime License Manager Planning Considerations

Prime License Manager manages licensing for Unified Communications Manager clusters, and Cisco Unity Connection servers for multiple customers deployed in HCS. Typically, multiple customers are assigned to the same Prime License Manager server. If you have multiple clusters, all the clusters must be assigned to the same Prime License Manager server. That is, you cannot assign some of the clusters to one Prime License Manager and the rest to another Prime License Manager.

HCS licenses are registered to and loaded and activated onto the Prime License Managers deployed in HCS. The Prime License Managers deploy the HCS licenses to the UCM clusters and Unity Connection servers those are assigned by the HLM.

Take the following actions for Prime License Manager planning:

Procedure

Step 1

Determine if you need multiple instances of Prime License Manager, which can be the case in either of the following scenarios:

  • If a Service Provider has resellers and wants to segregate the HCS licenses it provides to each reseller
  • If there are more than 1000 Unified Communications application clusters in the HCS deployment
Step 2

Install the Prime License Manager on the same management network as HCM-F so that Prime License Manager can access all Unified Communications application clusters. Prime License Manager can be coresiding with CUCM or can be installed as a stand-alone Prime License Manager residing at Application Space. If Prime License Manager is coresiding with CUCM, then that Prime License Manager can be dedicated for a customer.

Step 3

Install standalone Prime License Managers in the HCS Management domain. Set up each customer domain firewall to allow Prime License Manager to connect to UCM and Unity Connection through the HTTPS port 443 from the HCS management domain.

Step 4

Plan for appropriate usage of the Prime License Manager web interface:

  • For initial configuration, to generate license requests, to load license files, and to display license usage by cluster if desired.
  • To assign a cluster, when using only the HLM, to a Prime License Manager instance so that the HLM can aggregate license usage for all customers and clusters.

Determine Data Center Infrastructure Licenses

The following data center infrastructure components require specific licensing with the hardware feature capabilities:

  • Nexus switches (5500, 5600, 7000)

  • Session Border Controller

  • SAN

  • UCS Manager

  • ACS

  • VNMC

  • Prime Network Services Controller

  • Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) Device Manager

  • Cisco Prime Network Registrar (formerly CNR)

  • Open Source TACACS (alternate for ACS Appliance)

For more information on these components, refer to the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution Release 12.5 License Management.

Determine Data Center Storage Licenses

The following data center storage components require specific licensing:

  • SAN
  • Nexus switches (5000, 5500, 7000)
  • MDS switches
  • UCS Manager

Note
If you are using SAN-based storage, you must have storage access licensing for your Cisco components and for your SAN-based storage.

For more information, contact your Cisco sales engineer.

Determine VMware Licenses

For VMware licensing information, refer to the License Management for Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution.

Determine UC Applications

The following UC applications require specific licensing:

  • HCS software licensing bundles

  • HCS end customer license
  • Cisco Telepresence

  • Jabber clients

  • Jabber server

  • Add-On licenses:

    • CUAC (server based and serverless)

    • CER


Note

Cisco Expressway Server, Jabber Guest and Cisco Expressway Rich Media Session Licenses are add-on, session based licenses. They are managed separately from HLM/PLM and installed in Cisco Expressway. For more information see http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/unified-communications/expressway-series/tsd-products-support-series-home.html

For information on determining licensing requirements for HCS License Manager and Prime License Manager, see License Planning Considerations.

Third-Party Software Licenses

The following third-party software requires licensing:

  • CUAC
  • Cisco Paging Server (also known as Singlewire - InformaCast Basic Paging)
  • Prime Collaboration Assurance
  • VMware Virtual Center (vCenter)
  • HCS for Contact Center

  • Identity Providers - CA SiteMinder, Shibboleth, Microsoft AD FS, OpenAM, Oracle Identity Manager

For more information on Third-Party Software Licenses, see Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution Release 12.5 License Management.

Determine HCS Management Licenses

The following HCS Management components require specific licensing:

  • Fulfillment licenses

    • CCDM

    • Cisco Unified CDM

    • HCM-F - HLM

  • Assurance licenses

    • Cisco Prime Collaboration Assurance

For more information, see the License Ordering for Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution guide.

License Activation Considerations

The following must be considered for license activation:

  • eFulfillment uses an Enterprise License Manager or Prime License Manager to connect directly to the Cisco License website to fulfill licenses from a PAK. Therefore, the Enterprise License Manager or Prime License Manager must have access to the Internet. If the Enterprise License Manager or Prime License Manager does not have direct access to the Cisco License website, then offline fulfillment can be used. For details on both methods, see Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution Release 12.5 License Management.

    For information on the conversion from ELM to PLM, see Cisco Prime License Manager User Guide, Release 10.5(1).

  • Unified Communications Software Subscription (UCSS) activation - In HCS there are ways to purchase licenses and delay autoactivation. Consider UCSS activation when you are adding customers.

For more information on license activation, refer to the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution Release 12.5 License Management