C9300 Smart Licenses

[andrew.butterworth]

I'm a bit confused over C9300 Smart Licensing and I think it may have changed now with IOS-XE 17.x.

I work for a Cisco partner and we purchase Cisco kit through VARs.  All C9300 orders must include licenses (Network Essentials & DNA Essentials or Network Advantage & DNA Advantage).  Typically an email will get forwarded to engineers with the license details on a .pdf file.  If the order has been done correctly with the VAR, then the licenses will get assigned to the customers smart account, if not they drop into our Holding account where they can then be assigned to the end user smart account.

If I look on CCW at the Smart Account orders I typically only see the DNA licenses in there (DNA Essentials or DNA Advantage), and not the Network Essentials or Network Advantage licenses.  I thought we should receive both in the Smart Account order.  If the license isn't in the smart account when the switch registers with the idToken, won't it appear as out of compliance or is there something clever that happens now?

[Leo Laohoo]

That will depend entirely on how "honest" the VAR is.  

Usually, when we send our VAR the PO, we also give them explicit instructions to register our purchases to one specific Service Contract.  In a perfect world, these instructions gets followed and everybody goes home happy. 

It seems that there is this practice, and we are not alone in this situation, where a VAR's sales team member gets a bonus for every "new customer" they've signed up.  Since we are considered "existing" customer, the sales team member who's processing our purchase order does not get any bonus.  So what a lot of VAR are doing is "massaging" our company name to game the system.  This means our switches are different Service Contracts and register different companies.  For example, if our company name is ABCXYZ Inc, it might get registered as A.BCXYZ Inc or AB.CXYZ Inc or ABC.XYZ Inc, etc.  Each iteration of our company name equates to one (or more) Service Contract and this means a bonus to the team member processing our PO.  

We had to get our Cisco AM involved four times because the above practice generated in excess of over 250 Service Contracts under our company name.  

[andrew.butterworth]

Thanks for the reply, but that isn't what I was asking.

We purchased four C9300's (2 x 24port and 2 x 48port) recently through a VAR, all with Network Essentials.  I can see the order on CCW and all I can see is 2 x C9300-DNA-E-24= and 2 x C9300-DNA-E-48= licenses and these have been assigned to the customers smart account.  I can't see any Network Essentials licenses.

But I don't think its now a requirement to include the Network Essentials or Advantage license in the order as its just part of the switch part number (-E or -A suffix).  I just want to clarify if this is now the case.

[Leo Laohoo]

Anything "Essentials" is, essentially, the "lowest".  Think of it as IP Base in the old world. 

If Network Essentials does not appear then it means it is the "default" if the customer does not exercise the option of purchasing Network Advantage.

[andrew.butterworth]

Thanks for the reply Leo, but again that's not what I am asking.

I know what the license levels provide.  The question is to do with Smart Licensing.  Does the customer need to have the Network Essentials license in their Smart Account for them to be in compliance, or is this automatic somehow with the switch being purchased as a Essentials (-E) switch and it will register as that and a Network Essentials perpetual license will magically appear in the Smart Account.

The only licenses we have received are DNA Essentials licenses.  We didn't receive any Network Essentials licenses.  But I no longer think we need to.  I just want to clarify that this is now the case - if it is...

[Leo Laohoo]

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@andrew.butterworth wrote:
Does the customer need to have the Network Essentials license in their Smart Account for them to be in compliance, or is this automatic somehow with the switch being purchased as a Essentials (-E) switch and it will register as that and a Network Essentials perpetual license will magically appear in the Smart Account.

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Minimum is Network Essentials.  

Whether or not the switches will "magically" appear in the same Service Contract is highly dependent on the "honesty" of the VAR.  In a perfect world, yes.  From what we've experienced (and what we've heard), no.  

[Leo Laohoo]

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@andrew.butterworth wrote:
We didn't receive any Network Essentials licenses. 

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And nobody does.  

Every switch has Network Essentials "built-in".  By default.  No one can get switches without any form of "basic" license and Network Essentials is the most "basic" license.  

DNA Essentials, however, is different because one has to pay.  No one can escape buying DNA Essentials.  Because DNA Essentials is an added "tax"/purchase it will always appear with a dollar value.

[andrew.butterworth]

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@Leo Laohoo wrote:

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@andrew.butterworth wrote:
We didn't receive any Network Essentials licenses. 

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And nobody does.  

Previously we used to with C3650 & C3850 switches and older IOS-XE.  I don't think this is a thing anymore and at the point of order the switch is either a -E or a -A.  Its the bit after this where the switch registers with Smart Licensing.  Will it go out of compliance with the Smart Account not having the licenses available. Or, does it register and the PID causes a license to be generated/magically appear?

[Leo Laohoo]

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@andrew.butterworth wrote:

Will it go out of compliance with the Smart Account not having the licenses available.

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Depends on the firmware version. 

As far as I am aware, as of 17.12.1 (and earlier), there is NO "enforcement".  (Initially, There was talk about copying the Meraki enforcement method whereby if the license lapses the entire network grinds to a screeching halt.)

Unless things have changed recently, Network Essentials &/or Network Advantage are Perpetual (lifetime) and does not expire.  Subscription licenses for DNA Essentials and DNA Advantage can expire, however, there is no "enforcement".  When the DNA license expires, let them. 

[Retro]

Hi Andrew, 

We are in the same boat, our 2x 9300L arrived with preloaded Network Advantage (software above 17.12.1) but no trace of Network Advantage on the SmartAccount, only the DNA licenses appearing. We are able to send the RUM from the CSLU from the C9300L to the SmartAccount, but are not able to receive an ACK back. I suspect that this is because our licensing position on SmartAccount is showing as "Insufficient licenses" against the Network Advantage (showing -2 instead of 0).

"show license all" on the appliance does show "none" for ACK and the deadline for its reception seems limited; unless we get this sorted and ACK received, not sure what will happen to the appliance after the stated date .

We are querying with the vendor, I'll let you know as soon as we know more.

[Retro]

Ok, false alarm.

Network Advantage licenses were indeed initially missing from our SA/CSSM, however and after going through initial sync via the CSLU, they magically appeared on our SA/SmartAccount. I guess that they were pushed from our C9300 appliance to the CSSM via CSLU utility during initial sync. We now see under our SA both the DNA and Network Advantage licenses, our vendor didn't have to add Network Advantage for us. To confirm that our c9300L currently run on IOSXE 17.12.03.

Kind regards.