Switching Cloud Archive licensing between cameras

[JFurlong]

So in another question on the forum, it was answered that you can switch CA licenses between cameras in your dashboard as needed.

However, what happens with the cloud archived footage when you switch the license to another camera?

Is it deleted and unavailable and you start afresh with the new camera? Is it kept there and the new camera has the old archived footage available plus any new footage added?

Does it make a difference if this is a camera replacing a CA licensed camera that failed (i.e the camera itself doesn't have any existing footage) or if you switch the CA license to an existing camera that already has extensive on-camera stored footage?

Meraki also indicates that you can both play and export video footage; however, there's no indication how much footage you can export from the CA (if at all). Is it possible to export all/most of your cloud archive footage?


Thanks!

[EJN]

You may have read this already, but just in case while others reply:

https://documentation.meraki.com/MV/Storing_Video/MV_Cloud_Archive

[JFurlong]

Thanks -- I have read that before; however, it only talks about how to assign a CA license to a camera, not how to reassign a license (presumably there's a link to remove a license and then you would have the "add a license" link show up on cameras again) nor does it talk about what happens with the blue line CA indicator for camera history.

I'm assuming that it will be fairly obvious once I have the CA licenses and assign them to cameras; however, I have a customer asking me in advance how it will work and I couldn't find the answers to these questions. I get the impression that CA licenses aren't used by a lot of people.

[BrechtSchamp]

The cloud archive licenses are very new, so not a lot of people are using them at the moment indeed. I don't know the answer to the question, but it seems like a question others might have too. Maybe @Saralyn can hop in?

[Roska]

Good question thanks for posting @JFurlong 

Interested to know how this works as I do not have any CA lics active.

[JFurlong]

OK, I broke down and asked Meraki support since the customer was pushing for this information in advance of deploying CA licenses.

According to support, the upshot is this:

- you can move CA licenses between cameras; or more precisely, you can remove a CA license from a camera and it's returned to the license pool -- you can then assign it to another camera

- when you remove the CA license from a camera, all of the cloud footage stored is lost; on camera footage remains unaffected

[BrechtSchamp]

Thanks for posting back @JFurlong !

[Roska]

As I assumed, thanks for confirming @JFurlong !