Needed some Clarification in Meraki license

[Ashwanth]

Hi @All 

I have some questions regarding Meraki licensing. 

Imagine this scenario: I've bought an initial co-term license for 50 devices. Now, I want to monitor an additional 50 devices.

My questions are:

1) Should I purchase another 50 co-term licenses for the new devices? If so, will my organization have two co-term licenses with separate keys for each?

2) If two co-term licenses can exist in an organization, which API should we use to retrieve that data from the Meraki dashboard?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Ashwanth

[DarrenOC]

Morning @Ashwanth , I don’t have time to explain in my own words but this Meraki document should explain.

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Licensing/Meraki_Co-Termination_Licensing_Ov...

[PhilipDAth]

There is only ever a single co-term date.  When you buy additional licences it proportionally extends the existing co-term date.

[sungod]

1 yes and yes, btw make sure to add the new licence to increase number of devices, not to extend the term of the existing 50

2 you can have an arbitrary number of co-term licences in an org, there are a few endpoints for licensing, you can search the API documentation to find all that have the word...

https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/search/?q=license

for instance...

https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/get-organization-licenses/

https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/get-organization-licensing-coterm-licenses/

[Ashwanth]

@sungod 

So what you are saying is there can be multiple co-term license in a single organization containing a 50 devices each with a separate key for each co-term license.

[Ashwanth]

@All 

So, from my understanding the co-term license equally shared between devices under the below mentioned scenario 

let's say you initially purchased a co-termination license for 100 devices. Later, i want to add monitoring for an additional 50 devices, bringing the total to 150 devices. Instead of purchasing another 50-device license, i could choose to split the existing 100-device license equally among the 150 devices. This means that each device would be covered by a fraction of the license, allowing you to monitor all 150 devices without purchasing additional licenses

Is this how the co-term license works right!!!

[sungod]

No, that's not how co-term works.

Across all the licenses in the org, you must have enough licenses to cover the total number of devices.

If you had, say, 1,000 devices, you could have one licence for 1,000, or two for 500, or ten for 100, or one 500 plus two 200 plus one 100, doesn't matter, as long as the total is >= the number of devices, they will all have the same co-term date.

You cannot 'split' 100 device licenses into 150 device licences with a reduced co-term date.

From what you are saying  I'm guessing you are talking about System Manager licenses.

I recommend reading the link posted by @DarrenOC and also this below which explains the difference between adding/renewing behaviour...

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Licensing/Meraki_Licensing_-_License_More_De...

[Ashwanth]

@All 

As mentioned above i have 100 devices in my org having 2 co-term license with each 50 devices in it. i want to monitor the expiration date of the two co-term license at device level. 

Which API will be used to get device level co-term license information with claimed and expiration date. (i.e API with mapping to co-term key with device level information)

[sungod]

There is only one co-term date in an org using co-term licensing.

Use https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/get-organization-licenses-overview/

There is no such thing as "device level co-term license information with claimed and expiration date".

Co-term is org-wide, all licences/devices in the org have the same co-term date.

For instance, our lab network has 27 licenses covering many different devices types, with a mix of license durations, all claimed at different times, but they all go into the co-term pot and there's only one co-term date for all of them.

[pdeleuw]

The answeres here are somewhat confusing.

The license model is chosen for the entire organization. If you have an org with co-termination, you have exactly one termination date for the whole org. Imagine you have 10 APs, license termination is in 100 days. So you have 1.000 "license days" in your org. Now you buy one single AP with a one-year license. Now you have 1.365 "license days" for 11 APs. You have to calculate 1.365/11=124. Your license for your org will terminate in 124 days.

Regarding your questions:

1) Yes. You cannot purchase other licenses but co-term licenses. But no, you will not have two co-term licenses. You have claimed two license keys, but the licenses will be combined. If the license terminates, you will buy one new license for all devices in the org.

2) No, there are not two licenses in your org, and no, co-term licenses cannot be managed by API. API managemenent is available for per-device licensing and for subscription licensing.

That's my understanding of co-term licensing. Maybe the documentation will be helpful:

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Licensing/Meraki_Co-Termination_Licensing_Ov...

At the end of this document you will find a license calculator. Here you can enter the licenses you want to buy and calculate the new termination date. You have to be logged in in the dashboard.

https://dashboard.meraki.com/manage/dashboard/license_calculator