License Shortened after adding a license

NJacobe
Getting noticed

License Shortened after adding a license

Not sure if anyone has seen this. 

 

Added Ed a new device and license to the dashboard today. Checked the license and it shortened by 7 months. 

 

Anyone see that? I know they combine to equal a license but never though a new advanced lives e would make it shorter. 

 

Any thoughts??? 

13 REPLIES 13
HodyCrouch
Building a reputation

This article should clarify what happened when you added the new license and it was spread across all of your devices. https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Licensing/Cisco_Meraki_Licensing_Guidelines...

I get co terming but adding a new license that’s more expensive should not shorten the end date of your entire network. 

 

That would mean the more Meraki you buy and license the shorter your license would become. 

 

If you buy a 3 year enterprise license and add it to a dashboard that has an end date of 2022 it should not make it 2021 as an end date. 

jdsilva
Kind of a big deal

@NJacobe what was the co-term date before you added the license? I would think that it would have extended the co-term date that you had, while the new co-term date is sooner than the length of the license you just added. 

 

And yes, you don't want to keep adding new devices and licenses willy nilly forever as that is a zero sum game. Eventually adding a new license will not extend the co-term date in any meaningful way as it'll have to be spread out to cover everything in that Org. This is what renewals are meant to address. 

 

 

If you added an Advanced Security license for MX while your organization used to be at Enterprise level your organization as a whole was upgraded to Advanced Security. That means that the value of the old MX enterprise licenses was more or less cut in half. That would explain why the co-termination date moved closer.

 

Within one org all the MX's must be at the same feature level.

Correct but we added a new MX to replace the old with the same license level so that did not change.

We went from a Dec 2022 days to a Dec 2021 end date. We upgraded the MX so had to buy a new license. The new one even if co-teemed should extend (even if a month) not subtract a year or anything for that matter.

That’s my question. How can I recommend to clients to upgrade equipment and get a new license if this will happen.

How many MXs do you actually use in your organization? And what's are the current license limit column values for your MXs in the Organization > License Info page?

Is the MX the only device in the whole Org?

No. They have APs switches and cameras as well as the MX.
jdsilva
Kind of a big deal


@NJacobe wrote:
No. They have APs switches and cameras as well as the MX.

Right. So your new MX license extended the co-term for all those devices too. 


@jdsilva wrote:

Right. So your new MX license extended the co-term for all those devices too. 


Indeed. And also you should get in contact with the helpdesk or your sales rep to see if you can get the value of that old MX's license back as you're not going to use it. Due to upgrading to advanced security it's value was also halved which makes the effect @jdsilva talks about even worse.

Nope it shortened all of them according to the dashboard.

You should see it as follows:

You current licenses stood for a certain value. That value was spread out over all product groups and their quantities. This resulted in a certain co-term date.

 

You then upgraded to advanced security, which means that you actually need more "value" to support the advanced features on your two MXs. I'm not sure what term of advanced license you bought on the new license, but if it was short enough, there may not have been enough value to reach a later co-term date on your existing MX. So the dashboard redistributed the value of all groups and calculated a new earlier expiration date.

 

Seeing as you're only using one MX and you're paying for 2, perhaps Meraki licensing support can help you out getting some of that value back.

We have two licenses for two MXs. One MX has been replaced so there is just one active MX in the org. 

 

 

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