MCU 5300 clustering port flexibility

[hashimoto.kotaro]

HI all,

I'm wondering if we can move port licenses from one of a clustered MCU5300 to another one.

Let's say we buy two MCU5320s, each 5320 has only 10 licenses and cluster them.

(Of course it is cheaper to buy one MCU5320 with 20 licenses.)

In this case, if one MCU fails, is it possible to remove the licenses from failed MCU and install them to another one?

(Just like as a Supervisor blade of MSE8500 do.)

I couldn't find such descriotions on any documents, so I guess it is not possible...

Best Regads,

Kotaro Hashimoto

[Paulo Souza · Accepted solution]

Hi Kotaro,

Unfortunately, that is not possible. With 5300 series, you allocate the license on each MCU, the license is considered individually even if you have two MCUs in a cluster. Therefore, you cannot take off the licenses from a MCU and put them in another.

To move licenses with 5300 series, you would need to rehost the license, and, as far as I know, Cisco only rehosts license when the device is replaced via RMA or when you are upgrading (I think there are expections, but not to your case).

Regards

Paulo Souza

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[hashimoto.kotaro]

Hi Paulo,

Thank you for your information!

If we could do that, it would be one of the ways to assure hardware redundancy

Best Regards,

Kotaro Hashimoto

[Paulo Souza]

Hi Kotaro,

Thank you for confirming that your doubt has been answered.

I realized that you are looking for hardware redundancy, because there is no another reason to have two MCUs if a single one is enough to provide all the ports you need.

In this case, to have redundancy and to allow each MCU to be able to host all the conference if one fails, you should purchase licenses enough in each MCU to support the demand individually.

Even if you go to a single MSE 8000 with two blades 8710, it won't provide a full hardware redundancy, because if the MSE box fails, both blades stop to work.

Full redundancy normally has a high cost, therefore, before invest money, you should ask yourself some questions: What is the impact of a service outage? Will the customer lose much? What is the yearly downtime of a MCU? How long will it take to have a hardware replacement in case of failure? Is the customer willing to invest?

If you answer those questions and come to conclusion that is worth to purchase a full redundancy solution, I would suggest you to do that, but if not, I think that having two MCUs with 10 ports would be a nice play, that will provide a medium level of redundancy.

Regards

Paulo Souza

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