Solution Overview
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Cisco Smart Software Licensing with Cisco Unified
Communications Manager 12.0
Software licensing and management made simple
What if you could self-manage your company’s Cisco
®
software licenses intelligently, with a wealth of usage,
reporting, renewal, and upgrade information at your fingertips?
Benefits
For customers and partners:
● Easier to order and activate software―no PAK or license file
● Easy entitlement tracking
● Eliminates an on-premises Cisco Prime
®
License Server and saves VM resources
● Provides an accurate source for entitlement reports and a single location to view usage reports
● Allows you to share licenses across virtual accounts
● Provides accurate data for budgeting
For Cisco Sales and partners:
● Account teams can sign up to receive email reports of customer usage and noncompliance status
● A tool to help you guide customers in budget planning
What is Smart Software Licensing?
Cisco Smart Software Licensing is a new licensing approach that allows customers to self-manage licenses
intelligently. It is the future entitlement tool for all Cisco products. Smart Software Licensing delivers visibility into
your license ownership and consumption. You can set up an enterprisewide Smart Account and manage licenses
and entitlements across your organization.
After you set up a Smart Account, you have the flexibility to create subaccounts (virtual accounts) to help manage
licenses for departments, areas, or locations within your organization.
Cisco Smart Software Manager (SSM) is a smart licensing management portal hosted on Cisco.com that allows
our customers to intelligently manage product licenses. It provides real-time visibility and reporting of the Cisco
licenses you purchase and consume. You can access SSM from Software.cisco.com
(https://software.cisco.com/#module/SmartLicensing).
Cisco Smart Software Manager satellite is a component of Cisco Smart Software Licensing and works in
conjunction with SSM. It is available at no cost as a download of a virtual machine for security-sensitive customers
who do not want to manage their installed base using a direct Internet connection with SSM. Figure 1 compares
Cisco SSM and SSM satellite.
https://software.cisco.com/#module/SmartLicensing
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Figure 1. Comparison of Cisco Smart Software Manager and Smart Software Manager satellite
With Smart Software Licensing:
● You know what you’ve purchased and what you’re using in real time
● All Smart Software Licensing licenses go directly into your Smart Account
● Your products are registered to the virtual account and checked for compliance
● Licenses are floating—not tied to a product
● There are no Product Activation Keys (PAKs) or license files on the product
Improving the licensing experience
Smart Software Licensing simplifies the software purchasing, activation, and management experience for Cisco
customers and partners.
It replaces a limited view, in which customers didn’t have a complete understanding of what software they owned,
with a complete view (software, services, and devices) in one easy-to-use portal. Instead of manual PAK
registration for each device and unlocking a license key, you get easy registration. No PAKs. Easy activity. And
your device is ready to use.
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In the past, licenses were specific to only one device. Now devices have company-specific licenses, and software
can be used across multiple devices. Also in the past, licensing was locked; you couldn’t use more than you paid
for. Now licenses are unlocked; you can add users and licenses as needed (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Simplified software activation
How it works
First, you obtain a Smart Account. All smart license-enabled products must have a Smart Account assigned in
Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) to submit the order. There are two types of Smart Accounts: customer Smart
Accounts and partner holding Smart Accounts. A customer Smart Account is an account where Smart Account-
enabled products are deposited. It serves as a repository for these products. A partner holding Smart Account is an
account where users can temporarily hold smart license-enabled orders that contain smart license products until
the Smart Account for the end customer is identified. Smart Accounts are configured per domain based on defined
roles and access for users. Partners may also be provided access.
Procuring licenses and ordering smart SKUs
Smart SKUs are marked with the Smart Account icon. In the order, you will need to assign a Smart Account—
either a partner holding Smart Account or a customer Smart Account. Existing customers with active Cisco
Software Support Service (SWSS) can migrate their classic licenses to smart licenses through self-serve migration
features on the SSM portal. It is recommended that orders for traditional SKUs also be assigned to a Smart
Account for ease of migration in the future.
Register the product. Select the transport setting on the Cisco Unified Communications Manager product for the
deployment model. Obtain a token from the virtual account that has the smart entitlements for the product to
consume. Complete registration of the Cisco Unified Communications Manager product. When configuring the
satellite deployment model, please install and register the satellite before registering the product. Obtain the token
from the virtual account on the Cisco SSM satellite portal and complete the registration.
Manage licenses through the Cisco SSM portal. It’s a single-pane-of-glass solution that provides alerts (such as
license shortages or expiration dates for products in your Smart Account). You can see all registered product
instances and usage, as well as registered satellites. You can also migrate and transfer licenses across the virtual
account. All transactions are logged for meeting auditing requirements (Figure 3).
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Figure 3. Cisco Smart Software Licensing
Simplified movement of licenses
Licenses are not locked to Cisco Prime License Manager or a product node. There are no more license files and
no more multiple interactions with the Global Licensing Operations (GLO) team when rehosting a product or Cisco
Prime License Manager. Now licenses are smart entitlements. They can be present under a virtual account and
remain associated with it until transferred to another virtual account.
Smart entitlements available under a specific virtual account are ready for use by products registered to it.
Licenses consumed by a product can be freed up upon deleting the registered product instance from the virtual
account or upon a deregister request from the Cisco Unified Communications Manager product.
Enhanced view—Smart Software Licensing portal
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The Smart Software Licensing portal features a single-pane-of-glass view that includes:
● Alerts: Major and minor alerts such as license shortages and expiration dates for the Smart Account.
● Inventory: For a selected virtual account, you can view licenses and registered product instances. Other
features let you transfer or move products.
● Reports: Summary of license counts, usage, and subscription status.
● Email Notification: Several alerts or information events can be emailed.
● Satellites: Register satellites, add a new satellite, or generate an authorization file.
● Activity: View details for all transactions.
Cisco Smart Software Licensing deployment options
Figure 4 shows the deployment options for Smart Software Licensing.
Figure 4. Smart Software Licensing deployment options
Your communications are secure with Cisco Smart Software Licensing. All requests and responses to and from
Cisco SSM are encrypted over an HTTPS connection. Support for HTTPS with authentication is provided with the
proxy server. Support for HTTPS with registered satellites is also provided. Registration and synchronization
communications―both network and manual―from a satellite to SSM are fully secure (Figure 5).
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Figure 5. Secure communications
Cisco Software Central
Access your Smart Account at Software.cisco.com.
With Cisco Smart Accounts and virtual accounts, assets are represented as company owned, allowing effortless
sharing across your enterprise. You can create virtual ac
