What happens Smart Licenses expire.

[kittiphong]

Hello everyone

I use Catalyst 9000 series addition network-advantage and dna-advantage license.

A license has expired one year. If I do not renew a license, what happens? 

[jedolphi]

Hello,

Please review the data sheet for the model of Catalyst 9000 you have. All Catalyst switches have a perpetual license (never expires) and a subscription component (does expire). The perpetual component will work forever. The subscription component may stop working. The data sheets explain what features are perpetual and subscription. Generally speaking, standard networking features (VLAN, STP, routing, switching, HSRP, stacking, etc.) are perpetual and never expire. Start at following URL, select your switch model, check data sheet: www.cisco.com/go/cat9k

Best regards, Jerome

[marcelnjkoks]

This also shows a nice overview:

https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/products/software/dna-subscription-switching/en-sw-sub-matrix-switching.html

[ChuckMcF · Accepted solution]

It appears that Cisco is still having issues with their licensing and are not enforcing it. So as of right now if your licenses expire you will get a fair amount of warnings from your SMART account as well as DNA-C but that is about it. Of course the best course of action is to renew your licenses before expiration because you never know when they will begin enforcing. Also I do believe that if you do delay the purchase of new licenses it would be fair to assume that Cisco could make them effective on the date when your previous license expired. Best advice I have is to work with your Cisco Sale Rep on licensing. If you have many devices you may want to consider and Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) with them. The ELA seems to offer good cost savings but also helps put a handle on having 5-7 different licenses that expire at various times over multiple years.

Good Luck!

Chuck