Licensing for Cisco Crosswork Planning

This article provides details on using the Smart Licensing option in Cisco Crosswork Planning.

Smart Licensing Overview

Cisco Smart Licensing is a flexible licensing model that provides you with an easier, faster, and more consistent way to purchase and manage software across the Cisco portfolio and your organization. It provides complete visibility into your software usage and gives you full control over your licensing status.

For detailed information on Cisco Licensing, go to cisco.com/go/licensingguide.

Benefits of Smart Licensing

These are the key benefits of Smart Licensing.

  • Easy activation—Establishes a pool of software licenses that can be used across the entire organization—no more entering Product Activation Keys (PAKs).

  • Unified management—Provides a complete view into all of your Cisco products and services in a user-friendly portal.

  • License flexibility—Allows you to easily use and move licenses as needed since the software is not node-locked to your hardware.

Smart Licensing in Cisco Crosswork Planning

To use Smart Licensing, you must first set up a Smart Account on Cisco Software Central (software.cisco.com). A Cisco Smart Account is a repository for Smart enabled products and enables you to activate Cisco licenses, monitor license usage, and track Cisco purchases. All licenses you have purchased are kept in a centralized system called Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM), in customer specific Smart Accounts. With CSSM, you may create and manage multiple Virtual Accounts within your Smart Account to manage licenses. Cisco Crosswork Planning periodically sends the license usage information to CSSM. You can log in to your Smart Account to access the license utilization information.

Once the smartlicense service is active and you check out a license in the Cisco Crosswork Planning UI, the system enters the evaluation mode (up to 90 days) until the registration or reservation is completed. In evaluation mode, you will have access to all the features, but only for a limited duration of 90 days. After registration or reservation is completed, you can use all features until the license period expires. After the evaluation period of 90 days, if the product is still not registered with CSSM, or a reservation is not installed, all features will be marked as EvalExpired, and you will not be able to use any features until the smartlicense service is registered with CSSM or reservation is completed. Smart Licensing remains enabled, allowing you to register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM or complete the reservation.

Smart Licensing Configuration Workflow

These are the high-level steps involved in configuring Smart Licensing for Cisco Crosswork Planning:

  1. Set up a Smart Account on Cisco Software Central. Go to Smart Account Request and follow the instructions on the website.

  2. Configure the communication between Cisco Crosswork Planning and Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM). For details, see Configure the Transport Settings.

  3. Register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM. For details, see Register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM Using Token and Register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM Using Offline Reservation.

Configure the Transport Settings

You can configure the transport settings to determine how Cisco Crosswork Planning communicates with CSSM.

 Note

You cannot modify the transport settings while the product is in the Registered state. You have to deregister to update them.

Step 1

From the main menu of Cisco Crosswork Planning, choose Licensing. The Smart License page opens.

Step 2

The Transport settings field displays the current transport mode selected. To modify, click View / Edit. The Transport settings page appears.

Step 3

Select the relevant transport mode and enter the required information in the corresponding fields.

The available options include

  • Direct—Cisco Crosswork Planning directly connects with CSSM.

  • Transport Gateway—Cisco Crosswork Planning communicates through a Transport Gateway or CSSM On-prem, replicating the cloud-based user experience while keeping all communication on-premises. For details on the CSSM On-prem option, see the Smart Software Manager guide.

     Note

    Cisco Crosswork Planning supports only SmartTransport URL. The URL is in the format: http://<SSM-ONPREM-IP>/SmartTransport.

  • HTTP/HTTPS Proxy—Cisco Crosswork Planning communicates to the direct mode end point through the configured proxy, if proxy is configured.

Step 4

Click Save.

Register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM Using Token

To enable the licensed features, you must register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM using a registration token. For information on generating a registration token, refer to the support resources provided in the Cisco Software Central web page. Once registered, an Identity Certificate is securely saved in the Smart Account and used for all ongoing communications. The certificate is valid for one year and will be renewed automatically after six months to ensure continuous operation.

Follow these steps to register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM using token.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have a Smart Account. If not, go to Smart Account Request and follow the instructions on the website.

Step 1

From the main menu of Cisco Crosswork Planning, choose Licensing. The registration status and license authorization status will be Unregistered and Evaluation mode respectively.

Step 2

In the Smart Software Licensing information box at the top, click Register.

The Smart Software Licensing Product Registration page appears.

Step 3

In the Product instance registration token field, enter the registration token generated from your Smart Account. Ensure that the token ID is accurate and within validity period.

Step 4

(Optional) If you are re-registering the application, check the Re-register this product registration if it is already registered check box.

Step 5

Click Register. It may take a few minutes to process the registration. After successful registration, the "Product Registration completed successfully" message appears.

The registration status and license authorization status will be updated as Registered and Authorized respectively.

 Note

  • It will take at least 20 seconds for the request to succeed. If you do not receive a correct response within the first 20 seconds, the system will continue to check every 10 seconds for up to five minutes. If no response is obtained after five minutes, the system will display a generic error message.

  • If you encounter a registration error (for example, "Communication send error" or "Invalid response from licensing cloud"), wait for some time and retry the registration. If the error persists after multiple attempts, contact the Cisco Customer Experience team.

  • In some cases, after successful registration, the page may need to be refreshed manually to see the updated status.

Perform Licensing Actions Manually

The renewal of registration and authorization is automatically enabled in Cisco Crosswork Planning, by default. However, in the event of a communication failure between the application and CSSM, you can manually initiate these actions.

Follow these steps to manually renew, re-register, or deregister Cisco Crosswork Planning.

Before you begin

Ensure that the product is in the Registered state.

Step 1

From the main menu of Cisco Crosswork Planning, choose Licensing. The Smart License page appears.

Step 2

Click Actions and select the relevant option.

The available options include

  • Renew Authorization—Use this option to renew the authorization manually if the automatic renewal fails at the end of 30 days.

  • Renew Registration—Use this option to renew the registration manually if the automatic renewal fails at the end of six months.

  • Re-register—Use this option to re-register the application, for example, if the registration tokens have expired.

  • De-register—Use this option to deregister the application, for example, when you need to change the transport settings.

     Note

    Once deregistered, the application will be moved to Evaluation mode (if the evaluation period is available) or Evaluation Expired mode. For details, see License Authorization Statuses.

Smart License Reservation

When Smart Licensing is used, Cisco Crosswork Planning shares usage information to CSSM at regular intervals. If you do not want to connect with CSSM regularly, Cisco Smart Licensing provides an option of offline reservation. It is useful in highly secure networks.

Register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM Using Offline Reservation

Follow these steps to register Cisco Crosswork Planning with CSSM using offline reservation.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have a Smart Account. If not, go to Smart Account Request and follow the instructions on the website.

Step 1

From the main menu of Cisco Crosswork Planning, choose Licensing. The Smart License page appears.

Step 2

In the Smart Software Licensing information box at the top, click Register.

The Smart Software Licensing Product Registration page appears.

Step 3

Choose the Register via reserved license option.

Step 4

Under the Reservation code section, click Generate. Your Reservation Request Code is generated and populated in the text field. Copy this code using the Copy option.

Step 5

Generate the Authorization Code in CSSM.

  1. Log in to CSSM and select the appropriate Virtual Account.

  2. Click the Licenses tab and then click License Reservation.

  3. Paste the Reservation Request Code that you generated in Step 4 and click Next.

  4. On the Select Licenses page, select the type of reservation you need. Then, click Next.

  5. On the Review and Confirm page, click Generate Authorization Code. Copy the code using the Copy to Clipboard option.

Step 6

Navigate back to the Smart Software Licensing Product Registration page in the Cisco Crosswork Planning UI.

Step 7

Select the Paste authorization code option and paste the authorization code in the text field.

Step 8

Click Register.

It may take a few minutes to process the registration. Once completed, the registration status and license authorization status will be updated as Registered and Authorized respectively.

Update Offline Reservation

Follow these steps to update the license counts reserved using offline reservation.

Step 1

From the main menu of Cisco Crosswork Planning, choose Licensing. Make a note of the Product Instance Name (available under the Smart software licensing status section).

Step 2

Generate the Authorization Code in CSSM.

  1. Log in to CSSM and select the appropriate Virtual Account.

  2. Navigate to the required product instance and click Actions > Update Reservation.

  3. On the Select Licenses page, select the type of reservation you need. Then, click Next.

  4. On the Review and Confirm page, click Generate Authorization Code. Copy the code using the Copy to Clipboard option.

Step 3

Navigate back to the Smart License page on the Cisco Crosswork Planning UI.

Step 4

Click Actions > Update Reservation.

Step 5

Paste the Authorization Code generated in Step 2 and click Update.

A Confirmation Code is generated. You can find this under the Smart Software Licensing Status section. Copy this code.

Step 6

Enter the Confirmation Code in CSSM.

  1. Navigate back to CSSM and click the required product instance name.

  2. Click the Actions > Enter Confirmation Code.

  3. Enter or paste the Reservation Confirmation Code generated in Step 5 and click OK.

The license count will be updated in the Smart License page of the Cisco Crosswork Planning UI.

Disable Offline Reservation

Follow these steps to release the reserved licenses. Once the licenses are released, the application will be moved to Evaluation mode (if evaluation period is available) or Evaluation Expired mode.

Step 1

From the main menu of Cisco Crosswork Planning, choose Licensing. Make a note of the Product Instance Name (available under the Smart Software Licensing Status section).

Step 2

Click Actions > Return Reservation.

Step 3

In the Confirm Return Reservation window, click Confirm.

A Reservation Return Code (Release Code) is generated. Copy this code using the Copy option.

Step 4

Enter the Reservation Request Code in CSSM.

  1. Log in to CSSM and select the appropriate virtual account.

  2. Navigate to the required product instance and click Actions > Remove.

  3. In the Remove Reservation dialog box, paste the Reservation Return Code generated in Step 3 and click Remove Reservation.

Step 5

Navigate back to the Smart License page in the Cisco Crosswork Planning UI. Notice that the Registration status has changed to Unregistered.

Step 6

Click Actions > Disable License Reservation.

Update License Counts

In Cisco Crosswork Planning, you can update the number of licenses required for your usage. Having appropriate number of licenses is essential for the tools in the Cisco Crosswork Planning Design application to function correctly.

Follow these steps to update the license counts.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have a sufficient number of licenses in your Virtual Account in CSSM. Otherwise, the licenses will be out of compliance.

Step 1

From the main menu of Cisco Crosswork Planning, choose Licensing.

Step 2

In the License usage section, click Update license count.

The Update License Count page appears.

Step 3

In the Modified count column, enter the required license count.

There are three types of licenses in Cisco Crosswork Planning.

  • CP_RTM_ESS—For this type, you can choose to have either one license or a number of licenses equal to the number of nodes in the network. Cisco Crosswork Planning Collector application functions even if only one license is available. However, for Cisco Crosswork Planning Design application, this count must match the number of nodes in the network. This is necessary for tools and initializers to function correctly.

  • CP_RTU_ESS—For this type, you can have a count of 1 for both Cisco Crosswork Planning Collector and Design applications to function correctly.

  • CP_RTU_ADV—For this type, you can have a count of 1 for both Cisco Crosswork Planning Collector and Design applications to function correctly.

Step 4

Click Save.

License Authorization Statuses

This table describes the license authorization statuses based on the registration status.

License Authorization Statuses

Registration Status

License Authorization Status

Description

Registered

Authorized (In Compliance)

Cisco Crosswork Planning has been fully authorized to use the licensed features. The authorization is automatically renewed every 30 days.

Out of Compliance

The associated Virtual Account does not have enough licenses to reserve for the current feature usage of Cisco Crosswork Planning. You must renew the entitlement or the usage limit registered with the token to continue using the application.

Authorization Expired

Cisco Crosswork Planning is unable to communicate with CSSM for 90 days or more, and the authorization has expired.

Unregistered

Evaluation mode

A 90-day evaluation period during which the licensed features of Cisco Crosswork Planning can be freely used. This state is initiated when you use Cisco Crosswork Planning for the first time.

Evaluation Expired

Cisco Crosswork Planning has not been successfully registered at the end of the evaluation period. During this state, the Cisco Crosswork Planning features are disabled. You must register to continue using Cisco Crosswork Planning.

Registered Expired

Cisco Crosswork Planning is unable to contact CSSM before the expiration of Identity Certificates and has returned to the unregistered state. Cisco Crosswork Planning resumes the remaining evaluation period, if available. At this stage, new registration ID token is required to reregister the application.