Smart Licensing is a cloud-based, software license management solution that enables you to automate time-consuming, manual licensing tasks. The solution allows you to easily track the status of your license and software usage trends.

Smart Licensing helps you simplify three core functions:

• Purchasing: The software that you have installed in your network can be registered, without Product Activation Keys (PAKs).

• Management: You can automatically track activations against your license entitlements. Also, there is no need to install the license file on every node. You can create license pools (logical grouping of licenses) to reflect your organization structure. Smart Licensing offers you Cisco Smart Software Manager, a centralized portal that enables you to manage all your Cisco software licenses from one centralized website.

• Reporting: Through the portal, Smart Licensing offers an integrated view of the licenses you have purchased and what has been deployed in your network. You can use this data to make better purchasing decisions, based on your consumption.

Smart Licensing Features

• Your device initiates a call home and requests the licenses it needs.

• Pooled licenses - Licenses are company account-specific, and can be used with any compatible device in your company. You can activate or deactivate different types of licenses on the device without actually installing a license file on the device.

• Licenses are stored securely on Cisco servers.

• Licenses can be moved between product instances without license transfer. This greatly simplifies the reassignment of a software license as part of the Return Material Authorization (RMA) process.

• It provides a complete view of all the Smart Software Licenses used in the network using a consolidated usage report of software licenses and devices in one easy-to-use portal.

Cisco Smart Account

Cisco Smart Account is an account where all products enabled for Smart Licensing are deposited. Cisco Smart Account allows you to manage and activate your licenses to devices, monitor license use, and track Cisco license purchases. Through transparent access, you have a real-time view into your Smart Licensing products. IT administrators can manage licenses and account users within your organization's Smart Account through the Smart Software Manager.

When creating a Smart Account, you must have the authority to represent the requesting organization. After you submit the request, it goes through a brief approval process. Access http://software.cisco.com to learn about, set up, or manage Smart Accounts.

Cisco Smart Software Manager enables you to manage all your Cisco Smart software licenses from one centralized website. With Cisco Smart Software Manager, you organize and view your licenses in groups called virtual accounts (collections of licenses and product instances). Use the Cisco Smart Software Manager to do the following tasks:

• Create, manage, or view virtual accounts.

• Create and manage Product Instance ID Tokens.

• Transfer licenses between virtual accounts or view licenses.

• Transfer, remove, or view product instances.

• Run reports against your virtual accounts.

• Modify your email notification settings.

• View overall account information.

Virtual Accounts

A Virtual Account exists as a subaccount tithing the Smart Account. Virtual Accounts are a customer-defined structure based on organizational layout, business function, geography, or any defined hierarchy. They are created and maintained by the Smart Account administrator. Smart Licencing allows you to create multiple license pools or virtual accounts within the Smart Software Manager portal. Using the Virtual Accounts option that you can aggregate licenses into discrete bundles that are associated with a cost center so that one section of an organization cannot use the licenses of another section of the organization. For example, if you segregate your company into different geographic regions, you can create a virtual account for each region to hold the licenses and product instances for that region.

All new licenses and product instances are placed in the default virtual account in the Smart Software Manager, unless you specify a different one during the order process. After you access the default account, you may choose to transfer them to any other account, provided you have the required access permissions.

Use the Smart Software Manager portal to create license pools or transfer licenses.

Product Instance ID Tokens

ID tokens are stored in the Product Instance ID Token Table that is associated with your enterprise account. ID tokens can be valid 1–365 days.

Product Instances

A product instance is an individual device with a unique device identifier (UDI) that is registered using a product instance ID token (or ID token). You can register any number of instances of a product with a single ID token. Each product instance can have one or more licenses residing in the same virtual account. Product instances must periodically connect to the Cisco Smart Software Manager servers during a specific renewal period. If you remove the product instance, its licenses are released and made available within the virtual account.

Smart Licensing Work Flow

The following figure depicts a working model of smart licensing that involves a three-step procedure.

Cisco NCS 1020 supports the Vortex model for smart licensing software, and has the following Essential and Advantage licenses:

• ILA Essentials—One per ILA card (Maximum one license)

• OLT Essentials—One per WSS port per OLT card (Maximum 32 licenses).

• ILA Advantage—One per ILA card for Timing access and OTDR access features (Maximum1 license).

• OLT Advantage—One per WSS port per OLT card for Timing access, OTDR access, Connection Verification features (Maximum 32 licenses)

• CCMD Essentials—One per CCMD card (Maximum one license )

With Nyquist channels enabled, for each cross connection that is created on a port, one Essentials license and one Advantage license are consumed.

The following table lists the various licenses that can be enabled on Cisco NCS 1020.