upgrade ISE-VM-K9 to ISE-VMC-K9

[anfeldendani1996]

hello , 

we are in the process of upgrading our ISE environnement , and i have a couple of questions : 

1- we have a 2.7 ISE with device admin perpetual licence ; in a separate environnement , i  set up a 3.0 ise on a ISE-VM-K9 with evaluation mode and restored the old config backup . Is it possible to transfer the device admin license from the ISE 2.7 VM to the new VM? If so, is there a way to decommission the license on the old VM and reassign it to the new one?

2- the VM used is ISE-VM-K9 , which will be out of support on 31-march-2025 , can i upgrade the existing VM to a supported version ISE-VMC-K9 . if i need to set up a new one with the supported version , where can i download the OVA please ?  

thank you 

[Aref Alsouqi]

Yes, you need to get engaged with Cisco licensing team and they will take care of moving the TACACS licenses to your smart account, they would ask you how many new nodes do you have that will run TACACS services and will allocate the licenses accordingly. They will also convert the old VM licenses to the new model "ISE-VMC-K9=" for you. Once you have all the licenses allocated to your smart account you can connect the new deployment to the smart account to parse the licenses details.

[anfeldendani1996]

Thank you for your response.

Currently, our support contract has expired. Do we need to renew it before proceeding with the conversion, or is there a chance to convert our existing licenses without renewal?

[Aref Alsouqi]

I can't remember, but I don't think you need a support contract to do the licenses conversion. Please try to raise a TAC as per this link and see what Cisco licensing team get back to you with.

Cisco ISE Licensing Guide - Cisco

[ahollifield]

No.  You are also not entitled to software upgrades without a contract....

[Slobodan Todorovski]

Hello anfeldendani1996

As you didn't get answer to your second question, can you please share how actually did you approach?

Did you upgrade existing  ISE-VM-K9 to a supported version ISE-VMC-K9 or you install ISE-VMC-K9 and somehow restore the configuration from old one?

We are in same situations we have ISE-VMS-K9 , which will be out of support on 31-march-2025, our licenses are already converted to VMC but I'm wondering what is the best approach to handle this migration. 

[Aref Alsouqi]

The VM licenses do not necessarily dictate any order of configuration, restore, or upgrade. The only thing you need to do is to convert your old licenses to the new ones (VMC-K9) and have them available into your smart account. That way when ISE tries to parse the licensing details from your smart account it will go in compliance. Alternatively, if you don't get the VM licenses ready ahead of the upgrade nothing will effectively happen, and you will get the out of compliance warning which I believe allows you to sort out this issue within 45 days.