Cisco "Unified Licensing" Explianed

The longer you work in IT the more licensing models you see!

Cisco recently announced a new unified licensing model for their new Wi-Fi 7 APs that "offers the flexibility to manage your network on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid, using the same unified licenses, product support, and hardware."

Having read through the deployment guides and proposed a few of these for customers myself, I wanted to get out a post explaining how this model actually differs from what you would have previously purchased and why it's important to call out.

Straight off the bat, I’m not sure the name is quite right. something like "Cross platform" licensing or even "flex approach" licensing would be more accurate. Hopefully you'll understand why by the end of this article.

What was the old model?

The first thing to know is how you can manage your device in a Cisco environment. For Cisco Wi-Fi, your options used to be either cloud managed Meraki badged APs (MR 36, MR46, MR57, etc) or on-prem WLC (9800, eWLC, etc) managed APs (9120, 9130, etc).

Once you'd picked how you want to manage your devices (on-prem or cloud) the question was then around level of licensing. For on prem, every AP managed on a 9800 or eWLC requires a DNA license, either DNA Essentials or DNA Advantage (typical denotation of -E or -A on the product SKU).

I'm not going to cover the low-level details of both licensing tiers here. What you need to know is this; essential licensing will cover your environment for basic features (basic automation, monitoring, centralised management, etc) while Advantage will give you everything from the essentials tier plus advanced features (Policy-based automation, assurance & AI network analytics, detection and mitigation of security threats, etc). Not to mention, purchasing Advantage licensing for APs will also give you licensing for Cisco ThousandEyes and Cisco Spaces (formerly DNA Spaces)

When it came to Meraki, your options sounded eerily familiar; you can have Meraki Enterprise or Advanced Security licenses. Again, Enterprise provides base features while Advanced gives you everything you would get from Enterprise plus additional advanced features.

It's important to call out here, these licensing models/tiers are the same for switching. Previously Catalyst 9000 series switches could only be purchased with Essentials or Advantage while Meraki MS series switches can only be purchased with Enterprise or Advanced licenses.

What’s changed?

In relation to the licensing tiers and what's included within them - Nothing has really changed. What has changed is customer behaviour and Cisco's approach to hardware.

From Wi-Fi 7 APs onward, you can move between on-prem and Meraki (bi-directionally) for device management whilst staying at your license level; Enterprise <-> Essentials, Advantage <-> Advanced Security.

Cisco have allowed you 'the customer' to choose and, more importantly, change your mind on how you manage your devices, meaning your hardware can be flexed to meet your needs, e.g.:

• You want to manage your APs from your 9800 WLC today and then swing to Meraki later using the same licensing and hardware

• You want to deploy Wi-Fi 7 APs today on Meraki and move to an Software defined eWLC backed environment later under a larger project without incurring additional costs

Cisco are acknowledging every organisation is somewhere on the "Cloud IT journey", weather that's a cloud-first approach, hybrid cloud environment, private cloud only, etc. And Networks are no different. Customers want choice in how they manage their environment. Customers also hate having to buy something new to fit into a directive or requirement. Being able to flex your hardware to suit your changing needs is a massive step forward.

This isn't only APs either. The same goes for the Catalyst 9300 series Switches. You can now easily migrate your environment to being Meraki managed, moving your licenses again between their respective tier levels.

This is a big step forward in moving the Meraki and Cisco LAN portfolios closer together and I’m really excited about the direction of travel this opens up for customers.