MSE Delivery Modes

The Cisco MSE comes preinstalled on a physical appliance with various performance characters. The MSE is delivered in two modes, the physical appliance and the virtual appliance.

Physical Appliance

When the MSE is located on the physical appliance, you can use the standard license center UI to add new licenses. When the MSE is located on the physical appliance, the license installation process is based on Cisco Unique Device Identifier (UDI). Choose Administration > License Center on the Cisco Prime Infrastructure UI to add the license.


Note

Virtual appliance licenses are not allowed on physical appliances.

Virtual Appliance

The MSE is also offered as a virtual appliance, to support lower-level, high, and very high deployments. When the MSE is located on the virtual appliance, the license is validated against Virtual Unique Device Identifier (VUDI) instead of UDI.


Note

MSE is available as a virtual appliance for Release 7.2 and later. The virtual appliance must be activated first before installing any other service licenses.

The MSE virtual appliance software is distributed as an Open Virtualization Archive (OVA) file. You can install the MSE virtual appliance using any of the methods for deploying an OVF supported by the VMware environment. Before starting, make sure that the MSE virtual appliance distribution archive is in a location that is accessible to the computer on which you are running vSphere Client.

For a virtual appliance, you must have an activation license. Without an activation license, the MSE starts in evaluation mode. Even if service licenses are present on the host, it rejects them if the activation license is not installed.


Note

See the VMware vSphere 4.0 documentation for more information about setting up your VMware environment.

You can add and delete a virtual appliance license either using the Services > Mobility Services Engine > Add Mobility Services Engine page when you are installing MSE for the first time, or you can use the Administration > License Center page to add or delete a license.

See the Adding and Deleting Mobility Services Engines and Licenses and the Deleting an MSE License File for more information on adding a license and deleting a license using the mobility services engine wizard.

For more details on deploying MSE virtual appliance, see the Cisco MSE Virtual Appliance Configuration Guide.

This section contains the following topics:

Viewing the MSE License Information Using the License Center

The license center allows you to manage the Prime Infrastructure, Cisco WLCs, and MSE licenses. To view the license information, follow these steps:

    Step 1   Choose Administration > License Center to access the License Center page.
    Step 2   Choose Summary > MSE from the left sidebar menu, to view the MSE summary page.

    The following table lists the MSE Summary page fields.

    Table 1 MSE Summary Page

    Field

    Description

    MSE Name

    Provides a link to the MSE license file list page.

    Service

    The service type can be CAS, wIPS, Mobile Concierge service, Location Analytics service, Billboard service, and Proxy service.

    Platform Limit

    Platform limit.

    Type

    Specifies the type of MSE.

    Installed Limit

    Shows the total number of client access points licensed across MSEs.

    License Type

    The three different types of licenses: permanent, evaluation, and extension.

    Count

    The number of CAS or wIPS elements currently licensed across MSEs.

    Removing a License File Using the License Center

    To remove a license, follow these steps:

      Step 1   Install the MSE virtual appliance.
      Step 2   Add the MSE to Prime Infrastructure using the wizard.
      Step 3   Choose Administration > License Center to access the License Center page.
      Step 4   Choose Files > MSE Files from the left sidebar menu.
      Step 5   Choose an MSE license file that you want to remove by selecting the MSE License File radio button, and click Remove.
      Step 6   Click OK to confirm the deletion.