Cisco Catalyst router licencing

[carl_townshend]

Hi All

Can anyone shed some light on the key differences between the 2 licences on the Cisco Catalyst 8k routers

Cisco Routing Essentials

Cisco DNA Essentials

We run autonomous type Cisco routers and don't use or require SDWAN, we have ipsec tunnels, GRE, VTI, BGP, OSPF and QOS configured on them currently.

I see the routing essentials has "ospf for routed access",  how does this differ from the network stack advantage in the DNA essentials licence?

Many thanks

[DanielP211]

Hello!

So you need 2 licences for each router: one Network (Essetial/Advantage) + one DNA (essetial/advantage). With the DNA licence you also have to select the Tier (crypto traffic passthrough - which counts for all crypto traffic both SD-WAN or classic autonomous deployment). Difference if you have autonomous vs SD-WAN is that you won't need to extend the license after the period. 

Deeper understanding of differences between licences you can check here where you have each individual feature. 
https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/products/software/sd-wan-routing-matrix.html

For your use case I would say can go with Network Essentials and DNA essentials. (I assume you dont need NBARv2, MPLS, L3VPN...) For Tier you have to pick your crypto throughput. 

Cisco is also deploying a new Catalyst Routing Essentials model, which will enable you to have your classic deployment with vmanage for management/assurance/analytics.

BR

[carl_townshend]

Hi

Thanks for the response, I am aware of the multiple licences and throughput etc, I am more specifically focused on the network essentials vs advantage perpetual licencing features, I would like a comparison of what you get with each, I cannot appear to find anything on the internet with regards to this.

Many thanks

[DanielP211]

Hello!

There used to be a comparison matrix for both, but I cannot seem to find it on the cisco pages. It seems that cisco dosen't have the network essential/advantage license for routing anymore. Only left are the three I mentioned: Catalyst Routing Essentials, DNA Essentials and DNA Advantage. I also tried seting a BOM with the C8200 router and there are no more options for network licences. Regarding your question about OSPF for routed access - The features on the Catalyst Routing Essentials are the same as on the DNA Advantage, the difference being that DNA Advantage is used for SD-WAN and Routing Essentials for classical deployments. 

BR