AnyConnect Premium License issue

[Naveen Gupta]

We have 2 x ASA 5540's in a redundant cluster (Active/Passive) in HQ and 2 x ASA 5540's in a redundant cluster (Active/Passive) at out Backup Site.

We bought 1000 Shared AnyConnect Premium licences which is only showing on the HQ ASA's and not on the Backup Site ASA's. It's funny that we are now been told that we have to buy and pay $$ to share the 1000 licenses on the Backup site. What's the deal Cisco?

[Jennifer Halim]

Have you purchase the shared licensing participant license for the Backup site ASA?

That is required for any of the participant ASA that will be using the shared license.

Here is more information on shared licensing for your reference:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa83/configuration/guide/license.html#wp1283302

[Naveen Gupta]

We have a total of 1000 shared licenses that can be used by either HQ or Backup without splitting them up in any way. The issue here is that the Backup ASA should be enabled for sharing and should be able to draw upon the pool of 1000 licenses controlled by the master ASA (HQ) when needed. If we can configure the Backup ASA to be a member server, we should be all set. How to do this?

[Jennifer Halim]

Yes, you woudl need to configure it as a participant of the license on your backup ASA, otherwise, it won't share it automatically as it doesn't know who the member is.

Here is the configuration guide to configure the backup ASA as the participant of the shared license:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa84/configuration/guide/intro_license.html#wp2088663

(go to: Configuring the Shared Licensing Participant section)