Overview

Ultra Cloud Core 5G User Plane Function (UPF) supports Smart Licensing. Smart Licensing is a cloud-based approach to licensing that simplifies the purchase, deployment, and management of Cisco software assets. Entitlements are purchased through your Cisco account via Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) and immediately deposited into your Virtual Account for usage. This eliminates the need to install license files on every device. Products that are smart-enabled, communicate directly to Cisco to report consumption. A single location is available to customers to manage Cisco software licenses - the Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM). License ownership and consumption are readily available to help make better purchase decision based on consumption or business need.

See https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/buy/smart-accounts/software-licensing.html for more information about Cisco Smart Licensing.

Comparison Between Legacy Licensing and Smart Licensing

Cisco employs two types of license models - Legacy Licensing and Smart Software Licensing. Legacy Licensing consists of software activation by installing Product Activation Keys (PAK) on to the Cisco product. A Product Activation Key is a purchasable item, ordered in the same manner as other Cisco equipment and used to obtain license files for feature set on Cisco Products. Smart Software Licensing is a cloud-based licensing of the end-to-end platform leveraging few tools that authorize and deliver license reporting. Smart Software Licensing functionality incorporated into Network Functions (NFs) completes the product registration, authorization resulting in reporting services available to the end customer.

Evaluation Period

A 90-day evaluation period is granted for all licenses in use. During this period, feature licenses can be used without limitation, and up to one counting license each can be used. The evaluation period ends when the system registers successfully with the CSSM or Cisco.com. Licensed functionality is blocked when this 90-day period expires.

UPF performs license enforcement for on/off feature licenses. Each on/off feature license is tied to service licenses, which potentially use those on/off features. When an Out of Compliance (OOC) is detected for an on/off license, new calls for the corresponding services are dropped, subject to the following conditions:

  • Each on/off feature license is given a 90-day grace (evaluation) period. During this period, the system generates SNMP traps to inform of the unavailability of valid licenses. To resolve the OOC, corrective action is needed such as purchasing and registering licenses for this feature, or disabling the feature.

  • If the feature is still OOC after the 90-day grace period, UPF enforces the OOC state based on a predefined policy for each license. If enforcement is required, new calls for the services corresponding to the on/off licenses are dropped.

The following CLI commands can be used to display details about the enforcement of Smart Licenses in use:

show license enforcement policy 
show license enforcement status [ allowed | blocked ] [ feature | service ]