A9K-ISM-100 and A9K-VSM-500 license

[czsniper]

Hi. 

This is my first post in this community and I am a newbie on Cisco products.

Recently I have bought three ASR-9010 to build my core network and because my plans include NAT64 and NAT things I decided to buy two A9K-ISM-100 cards and looking for third one. This time I have found an A9K-VSM-500 card but I cannot find anywhere on docs if I can use this card without a license. So my question is:

Can I use A9K-ISM-100 and A9K-VSM-500 without purchasing a license ?

Thanks,

Robert

[smailmilak]

Hi,

I assume that you have bought the ISM-100 as refurbished or outside Cisco because it's EoL for a long time.

About licenses, technically you don't need them, but you will probably get logs about missing licenses. 
I advise not to use it without licenses, though. 

[czsniper]

Thanks for your answer.

We are in a validation of a project, so we try to shrink the cost to the lower edge until we have a valid response. In this project are involved three small ISP with 200-500 users that will gather together 1000 users connected to the core and most of them will use NAT64. 

Error logs with missing licenses are not a problem at this moment for us if the board works like a licensed one.

I have understood right, we can use the board without a license for this test/validation (~ 3months) at full services without any interruption ?

[pathiksohel]

We want to deploy Carrier Grade Network Address Translation (NAT): CGN on a ASR9006 Router.

NAT on ASR9006 is completely new to us.

When we read the bellow link, it shows it needs license, Could any one please let me know details of the licenses requirements,

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/asr-9000-series-aggregation-services-routers/data_sheet_c78-663164.html

ISM Software
Cisco ASR 9000 CGN License (1 per 5 million translations)	Cisco IOS XR Software Release 4.2.0 or later	A9K-CGN-LIC-5M

The link also says, "The service hosted on an ISM may be changed at any time by changing the service image loaded on the ISM."

What service image do we need to be loaded ? 

Is it preloaded to the ISM Card by default when we buy it from ebay or any other third party rather than directly buying from cisco?

Do we need to buy any other parts/IOS image/license to make it working as a CGNAT router ?

[smailmilak]

Hello, the ISM is not supported anymore. Please don't use it anymore.

The replacement for ISM-100 is VSM, which has also reached end of SW support. 
You can check out more here
End-of-Sale and End-of-Life Announcement for the Cisco ASR9000 Virtualized Service Module - Cisco


I would use a 3rd party product such as A10 Networks for CGN. It is more scalable and easier to use, but it is not a LC which you can insert in the A9K chassis. It is up to you to decide.

[pathiksohel]

Thank you you @smailmilak.

We want CGNAT configured for 100000 users. 

We are familiar with Cisco. When we look at the specifications, throughput, and prices of A9K-VSM-500, it seems very much affordable to us, we have no clue of A10 pricing model. We will talk to A10 and try to get an estimated price from them. 

Thanks again. 

[diefierr]

Adding to @smailmilak comments.

Why dont you explore the option for MAP-T.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/asr9000/software/asr9k-r7-6/cgnat/configuration/guide/b-cgnat-cg-asr9k-76x/cg-map-t-cgnat-cg-asr9k.html

Diego

[pathiksohel]

Thank you @diefierr, doing some research on it. 

[tkarnani]

the XR based VSM is approaching end of life.

possibly try to contact cisco sales via https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/buy.html

they may have another solution for you that may work