Cisco Smart Software Licensing is a new, flexible way of licensing using which you can buy, deploy, track, and renew Cisco software. By using Smart Licensing, you can remove the entitlement barriers that are present in Traditional or Classic Licensing. Smart Licensing is also a major step towards Cisco's e-strategy, as this functionality enables you to move away from a PAK-based licensing model.

With Smart Licensing, you can configure, activate, and register your device, which removes the need to go to a website and register product after product with (Product Authorization Keys) PAKs. Instead of using PAKs or license files, Smart Software Licensing establishes a pool of software licenses or entitlements that can be used across your entire company in a flexible and automated manner. License pooling is particularly helpful with Return Material Authorizations (RMAs) because pooling eliminates the need to re-host licenses.

When you buy or upgrade to a Cisco Smart Software Licensed product, you have to first create a Smart Account. To do so, you must obtain access to the Cisco Smart Software Manager (CSSM) Portal. Use CSSM to organize and view your licenses in groups called Virtual Accounts (collections of licenses and product instances). Using the Virtual Account, you can manage license deployment throughout your company easily and quickly.

Further, you, your chosen partners, and Cisco can view your hardware, software entitlements, and eventually services using the Cisco Smart Software Manager interface.

The following list gives you some key operations that you can perform using the CSSM portal:

• Create, manage or view virtual accounts.

• Create and manage Product Instance Registration 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.

Smart Licensing thus offers standard product offers, a standard license platform, and flexible contracts with a simplified, and better user experience.