throughput and licensing on ISR 4331

[gian.luca.bianchi]

Hi All,

I wonder if someone can help me find the exact license(-s) I have on my router, and especially help me find what is the currently enabled max throughput, and whether I need to buy a license to extend it. I know the throughput ranges from 100 to 200mbps depending on license applied; my device is an ISR 4331, and the IOS is:

isr4300-universalk9.03.15.01c.S.155-2.S1c-std.SPA.bin

This is the output of the relevant command:

RTR01#show license feature
Feature name             Enforcement  Evaluation  Subscription   Enabled  RightToUse
appxk9                   yes          yes         no             yes      yes
uck9                     yes          yes         no             yes      yes
securityk9               yes          yes         no             yes      yes
ipbasek9                 no           no          no             yes      no
cme-srst                 yes          yes         no             no       yes
hseck9                   yes          no          no             no       no
throughput               yes          yes         no             no       yes
internal_service         yes          no          no             no       no

RTR01#

What level of thoughput is enabled as of TODAY?

If it isn't 200m, and if I wanted to extend it to 200m, would I need to pay, or just configure some more lines on the router?

I am extremely confused as per what all the columns mean, if someone could shed some light in detail on how to read the output, it would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Luca

[Joseph W. Doherty]

With the 4331's base performance license, yes you're limited to 100 Mbps of aggregate throughput although I suspect you can burst to system max for some (very) short time interval.

Yes, you can also obtain a performance license allowing 300 Mbps but you can also obtain a boost license that permits up to 2 Gbps.  The latter is whatever the hardware can provide which can vary much based on traffic mix and your router's configuration.  (The latter would be much like how the prior generation ISRs worked, regarding performance.)

[James Lemons]

Hello,

I realize this is late for this thread, but in case anyone ever needs to know how to turn on the Performance License, it doesn't appear it was mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

All the ISR routers come in their base speed to start with, which means the Throughput license is in the non-enabled mode:

show license | b throughput: (this way you don't have the read through all the other licenses)

Standard output looks like this:

Index 9 Feature: throughput

Period left: Not Activated
Period Used: 0 minute 0 second
License Type: EvalRightToUse
License State: Active, Not in Use, EULA not accepted
License Count: Non-Counted
License Priority: None

The EvalRightToUse mode is the lesser of the 2 performance levels. ISR4321 = 50M, ISR4331 = 100M, ISR 4431 = 500M etc. 

To find out if you can immediately jump to the RightToUse license, do the following: (this is on a 4331)

conf t

license accept end user agreement

platform hardware throughput level ?    (to determine the correct "Performance License" max speed for your unit)

100000 throughput in kbps   = standard EvalRightToUse mode
300000 throughput in kbps   = Performance RightToUse mode

platform hardware throughput level 300000 (enter the value from your router which matches the 2nd result from the above cmd)

(if you get a prompt, enter 'yes')

cntrl+z to exit config mode

save the config and reboot. After reboot, your license should change to the Performance speed, but in Evaluation mode:

Index 9 Feature: throughput

Period left: 16 weeks 4 days       <-- How long you have to "test" the license
Period Used: 3 days 19 hours
License Type: Evaluation            <-- this lets you know you haven't made the license permanent yet
License State: Active, In Use      <-- this lets you know you have activated the Throughput license
License Count: Non-Counted
License Priority: Low

To activate the Performance License, you enter this command:

router# license right-to-use move throughput

once applied, the license updates to the following:

Index 9 Feature: throughput

Period left: Life time
License Type: Permanent        <-- note the license is now permanent
License State: Active, In Use
License Count: Non-Counted
License Priority: Medium

to confirm, show platform hardware throughput level will show you the router's currently throughput speed:

show platform hardware throughput level
The current throughput level is 300000 kb/s

NOTE: If you jump to a Boost License, which does require a new License, output will change to something like this:

Index 9 Feature: throughput
       Period left: Life time
       License Type: Permanent
       License State: Active, Not in Use
       License Count: Non-Counted
       License Priority: Medium
Index 10 Feature: internal_service
Index 12 Feature: booster_performance_demo
       Period left: 16 weeks 4 days
       Period Used: 3 days 19 hours
       License Type: Evaluation
       License State: Active, In Use
       License Count: Non-Counted
       License Priority: Low

As you can see here, we're using a demo license (for whatever reason, cisco is calling this the Covid19 demo license). Boost does require IOS 16.7.x if I recall correctly. My units are not able to use smart licensing, therefore this is based on the old, license on the unit style licensing.

Hopefully this is helpful to someone down the road.

Cheers

[jcbuilder]

#license right-to-use move throughput