Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.0.0 (53-1002148-02, June 2011)

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 369
53-1002148-02
Chapter
18
Administering Licensing
In this chapter
•Licensing overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
•The Brocade 7800 Upgrade license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
•ICL licensing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
•8G licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
•Slot-based licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
•10G licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
•Time-based licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
•Universal Time-based licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
•Viewing installed licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
•Activating a license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
•Adding a licensed feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
•Removing a licensed feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
•Ports on Demand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Licensing overview
Feature licenses are often part of the licensed paperpack supplied with your switch software; if not,
they can be purchased separately from your switch vendor, who provides the transaction keys to
activate the associated feature or features. Each product, each feature, and each individual switch
within a fabric requires its own license key.
Licences might be associated with a feature version. If a feature has a version-based license, that
license is valid only for a particular version of the feature. If you want a newer version of the
feature, you must purchase a new license. If a license is not version-based, then it is valid for all
versions of the feature. Likewise, if you downgrade Fabric OS to an earlier version, some licenses
associated with specific features of the version you are downgrading might not work.
NOTE
To preserve licenses and the functioning of features associated with the licenses installed on your
switch, use the configUpload command before you upgrade or downgrade Fabric OS.
Fabric OS includes basic switch and fabric support software, and support for optionally licensed
software that is enabled using license keys.
In Fabric OS v7.0.0 or later release, some licenses might display with the text “Obsolete license.”
This happens because of changes in licensing requirements of some features that no longer
require a license key, yet are still installed on a switch.