Cisco’s new Smart Licensing System was introduced in 2014, but started becoming mandatory with the IOS XE 16.9 update in October, which brought Smart Licensing to Cisco’s Catalyst 3650, 3850, and 9000 series switches. Cisco claims this allows for easier, more flexible management of hardware licenses—but it also gives Cisco more control over hardware you’ve purchased.
Before Smart Licensing, switches were largely a set it and forget it deployment—you bought a piece of hardware along with a license to use the software on it. If you sold that hardware, the license went with it. Third-party companies could help you maintain your equipment when you ran into problems, even if the manufacturer had deemed the product End of Life for first-party support.
Smart Licensing works differently. Companies can acquire a pool of licenses for their account, which are shared automatically among devices they’ve deployed. Those devices phone home to Cisco regularly for validation, and if they aren’t able to do so will go back to “Evaluation Mode” after one year. (Cisco has alternative methods for validating devices in air gapped networks, but they still require regular validation in some form.) Evaluation Mode doesn’t contain any strict functionality limitations on most devices, but it’s unclear what happens after the evaluation expires.
It’s shit like this that makes me not feel too bad about chinks ripping off Cisco technology
Bentley Williams
This. I get a sense of pleasure knowing that there’s literally nothing cisco can do about it either.
Jack Bennett
Even if you're a service provider or need "enterprise-class" networking equipment, why not just go with Juniper or one of the other decent switch/routing vendors out there? Fuck Cisco.
Kayden Martinez
yikes, should i not get my CCNA lads?
Kayden Lewis
I dont know . Ask Cisco.
Aiden Johnson
get if before they change it next year. It looks pretty good on resume and for a time it was the respectable cert that shows you actually know TCP/IP stack, OSI, basic troubleshooting skills and some knowledge of dynamic routing protocols. It's a flashier Network+.
also i'm not a cisco shill i fucking hate the company, but the syallbus for the CNNA R&S actually does significantly cover more relevant technology than CompTIA network +
Hunter Mitchell
Is the change next year not good?
I read some CCNA/CCNP books in college in 2012. RIP was still in etc
Been dragging my feet on getting the actual cert.
Justin Carter
Just buy the licence with the hardware. EU law makes it illegal for acisco to prevent that.
Matthew Hughes
sorry for the spelling errors, phone posting at this time
>Is the change next year not good? apparently it's going to be expanding the syllabus to include SD-WAN along with a shitload of other topics. From what I hear it's going to be a lot harder. If you quickly get the current version of the CCNA R&S before Feb 2020, it'll stay valid for 3 years. Plus I heard you get an exclusive little R&S pin on LinkedIn that won't be claimable ever again since all associate level certs are going to be grouped into one big CCNA exam, no more CCNA Security or Datacenter, UC, etc.
Got mine in 2018 because my employer required i get it. It's really not that hard if you break it into the 2 exam approach but it really tests fundamentals.
Companies like UBNT are going to put Cisco the FUCK out of business within the next decade. There is literally no reason to buy Cisco garbage unless you absolutely are required to due to some contractual obligation your organization retardedly entered into.
Jordan Robinson
Depends. A great change if you're aiming at the CCNP, is you don't need the CCNA as a prior requirement anymore, you can jump straight to NP if you wish.
Eli Morgan
>There is literally no reason to buy Cisco garbage unless you absolutely are required to
What about all the hardware that's already deployed? How can Cisco be out of business if they are moving to using this type of licensing on every device that's already installed/in use? Asking for real, I want to know
Henry Thompson
Not him but your explanation is the only real reason to keep buying Cisco equipment. The networks and infrastructure already built on Cisco will only really play nicely with other Cisco equipment unless you're prepared to replace everything.
Christian Collins
reasons like this are why the company I work for is moving to juniper and aruba devices Sucks that Aruba is trash but we already have server contracts with HPE
Brandon Thomas
>Ubiqutiy >Having any relevant market share at all How retarded are you?
Eli Lopez
Once I found Unifi because of a really specific project I never looked back. Fuck HaaS. Jewest shit I've ever heard of. Just like John Deere but worse
Zachary Reed
>yes goy, ignore the new upstarts that disrupt our (((licensing))) schemes
Jaxon Flores
as much as it's a good idea to avoid actually purchasing cisco equipment, their certs are still powerful enough to get your foot into a lot of doors even though pajeets test dump the shit constantly so you can never be sure if a candidate is good on ccna alone, it's still way more powerful than comptia's entry level offering or vendor specific stuff like juniper
while cisco's certs are vendor specific, they still teach enough where it's going to be EASILY translatable to juniper/routeros/etc, while it's less so the other way around cisco's track teaches really thoroughly and a deep level, so as long as you pass it legit, you will easily be able to prove in an interview that you know your stuff
David Lewis
>buying a product of a company that wants to screw you over Is this some kind of Stockholm syndrome?
Caleb Scott
The base networking functions remain operational even if the subscription expires. He could have opened a datasheet before writing the piece.
And apparently he got called on it and had to wrote an unapologetic update.
Camden Richardson
So 10 years from now, the PoE switches from 2019 being sold on eBay will still do dumb switching?
Right now, 2007-2009 Cisco 24-port gigabit PoE switches go for ~$120 or slightly more and are perfect for VoIP and IP camera setups and Ubiquiti AP's. And cheap enough to keep a cold spare.
