With Version 12 we started to hear the term Smart License. What is a smart license and how it make things easier.

With Smart licensing, this process is simplified to 3 steps and one tool. Once customer place an order and all the information required will be saved on central database on cisco.com, and the software with smart license enabled will be ready to use and customer will not be needed wait to
receive the PAk and to enter PAK to install the license. All information will be on single portal and customer can view and manage all its devices in their infrastructure from single place by entering company identifier (smart account). They will have a complete view of what they have bought. There will be no more PAK registration, no node locked,its company specific and can use on multiple compatible devices.

With Smart Licensing, CUSTOMER will be licensed, not the Product Installation.Licenses are Pooled for the entire account/sub account and will provide real time transparent information to the Customer, Cisco, and Partners on upcoming License Needs.

Licensing Levels remains the Same as 11 .

• Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing (UWL) Meetings Edition
• Cisco UWL Standard Edition
• Cisco User Connect Licensing (UCL)
• Telepresence Room

Instead of going from the top, i prefer to discuss from the bottom.

Cisco User Connect Licensing (UCL)

This license Depend on the type and number of devices you require.UCL is available

• Essential,
• Basic,
• Enhanced,
• Enhanced Plus versions.

Cisco UWL Standard Edition

This license includes call control,voice messaging, Cisco Expressway, and soft clients. Instant messaging and presence are also included as a perpetual license on premises.

Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing (UWL) Meetings Edition

It includes all features in the Standard Edition plus Personal Multiparty Plus unlimited video conferencing which include below Components
Meeting Server

• Cisco TelePresence Server and Conductor,
• Cisco WebEx Meetings Server on-premises conferencing,
• session management,
• contact center capabilities.

Comparing CUWL Meeting and Standard.

Telepresence Room

This License supports room based immersive and multipurpose Cisco TelePresence System endpoints.With Latest Epxressway versions, you can register TP end points on Expressway C server. When purchasing a TP license you get license for CUCM and for expressway which is Expressway Room License.

How Smart Licensing works

Customer Place an order on Cisco Commerce and they associate the order with smart account, this information is populated on Smart Software Manager which reside on on cisco.com. Now they have complete view on what they have ordered and purchases.

What are the Deployment Models for Smart Licensing

The product that have smart licensing enabled (via CLI or GUI), will register to CSSM, they will report license consumption to CSSM. Two models are there to report the usage:

• Direct Model – Customer Licensing information is where security is not major concerned. Customer can use HTTPS proxy or Transport Gateway to allow devices to talk to the through private network. This will become the centralized access point for CSSM, all of this is HTTPS so it will be secured.

• Mediated Deployment Model – This is for the customer who have security concerns. They do not want their devices to talk directly to Cisco.com from their private network. They can install CSSM Satellite on a VM which will reside on customer premises and act as CSSM. It can be synchronized with CSSM on cisco.com monthly or weekly or totally disconnected. For completely disconnected customer who don’t have internet connection from their network, they can do file upload and download. We need to have the synchronization to know the entitlement, recommendation is to do the syn in 30 days.

Smart Account and Virtual Account
Cisco Smart Accounts is a new, time-saving method of customer or partner-managed software license asset management. Through an account on the cisco.com website, it lets you view and control access to all of your Cisco software licenses and entitlements across your organization
After you set up a Smart Account, you have the flexibility to create sub accounts (virtual accounts) to help manage your licenses for departments, areas, or locations within your organization. Licenses can be pooled within virtual accounts as needed.

Cisco Smart Software Manager

The Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem (Cisco SSM On-Prem) license server is designed to mirror the Cisco Smart Software Manager’s license workspace experience through a common user interface and similar features. It is targeted for service providers and Cisco partners who need to manage multiple customer accounts through a single management portal instead of individual customers managing their own accounts.

The Cisco SSM On-Prem license server must communicate with Cisco Smart Software Manager periodically to properly operate. Customers need to synchronize their local license usage with the Cisco portal to make sure that the most recent purchases are reflected in their local copies. This can be automatically or manually initiated. The automatically scheduled synchronizations can be daily, weekly, or monthly; depending on the frequency, the data on the Cisco SSM On-Prem license server can be made as current as the portal on a daily basis. Manual synchronization involves a file transfer at least once a year, which represents an air gap for high-security service providers and partners

Who should use it?

The Cisco SSM On-Prem license server is targeted for all customers. For security-sensitive customers who do not want to manage their installed base with a direct Internet connection, Smart Licensing provides Cisco SSM On-Prem license server software, which resides on the customer’s premises.

●     When should it be used?

Customers desire local control and management of their license usage, or when electronic communications with Cisco is not possible due to either connectivity or security policy.

Cisco Smart Software Manager Satellite
For customers who, either for policy or network reachability reasons, do not want to manage their Cisco products directly using Cisco Smart Software Manager residing at software.cisco.com, they can choose to install Cisco Smart Software Manager satellite on-premises. Devices or software product are registered and report license consumption to the Smart Software Manager satellite as though it were a replicate of the Cisco Smart Software Manager hosted within the customers premises.

Satellite Deployment Models

• Connected

It is easier deployment of Satellite. Used when there is direct connectivity from Satellite to Cisco.com. Smart Account Synchronization happens automatically though its optional.

• Disconnected

Used when there is NO direct connectivity from Satellite to Cisco.com. Smart Account Synchronization must be done using file upload and
download manually.

Note:-Since there is no service running on subscriber, none of the smart licensing operations can be done from the sub. The CLI commands also do not provide any output on sub.

Next post i will discuss about Flex Licensing.