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Cisco Data Center Licensing

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Heath Brown edited this page Nov 5, 2023 · 9 revisions

2023-11-04

If you are in the networking field or just in information technology in general, and use any vendor's products, licensing is something we deal with all the time. These are my notes on the topic specifically regarding Cisco Data Center Licensing.

This is based solely on the resources linked at the bottom.

First, we need to understand the tiered model that Cisco currently has for its Data Center Software subscriptions.

  • DCN (Data Center Networking) Tiered Licenses
    • Data Center Networking Essentials Subscription
    • Data Center Networking Advantage Subscription
    • Data Center Networking Premier Subscription
  • DCN Add-On Licenses

Great, now what do these subscriptions apply to, hardware wise.

  • Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches

Subscription Terms come in 3,5,7 years for the initial hardware purchase, this is my understanding from the document in the Purchasing section.

After the 3,5,7 year subscription ends, you can do a renewal using the CCW-R tool and this supports 1Y, 3Y, 5Y renewals.

Let's breakdown the three tiers of licensing and the purpose of each.

DCN Essentials (NX-OS) DCN Essentials (ACI)
Enterprise LAN(2022) / Routing and switching features (2023) MultiPOD
NDFC-LAN(2022) / Fabiric management features (2023) ACI Base capabilities
Network Services (2022) / Fabric services features (2023) PTP

I am pretty sure that did not help when you look at the NX-OS side.

Resources:

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