ISE Test / Development environment

[bberry]

Hello,

I am looking to create a test / development cluster in the lab instead of using my production system and am wondering what others are doing. We have a retired server I think I can use to build the Admin & Policy server on but need to verify cores and memory so software will install. What about licensing? I am thinking I can convert my base, plus, apex licensing to SMART licensing and peel a few out to use  between my production system and testing system? I also guess I will still need the VM / server licenses to get everything to work even though this is a test environment?

Just trying to see what other piece parts I will need to go to management for in addition to retired server.

Thanks in advance ...

Brent

[Arne Bier · Accepted solution]

Smart licensing is very handy here because you can create a new virtual account and move a few base licenses into it. I think one base license is sufficient to please the licensing engine. I never go less than 16 GB even for lab. ISE will thrash the disks (swap) if you give it less. 4 CPU threads seems enough but you will likely get VM under resource messages. Ignore them. 
VM licensing can be ignored although you probably should be purchasing them. If you have them in your smart account then use. But this license is not enforced. Yet ...

Build at least two lab nodes so that you can do realistic stuff. The more nodes the better.