Cisco Cisco License Manager SDK White Paper

Deployment Guide

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Deploying Cisco License Manager 3.1 in
Isolated Networks

Last updated: May 2011

Abstract

Cisco

License Manager is a lightweight, GUI-based application for managing Cisco IOS

Software activation and

licenses for many Cisco devices such as Cisco Catalyst

3560-E/X and 3750-E/X Series Switches. It automates

the licensing workflows associated with fulfillment and accelerates deployment of licenses in customer networks.

Cisco License Manager resides at the customer premises and securely communicates with Cisco devices in the

customer network to automatically build an inventory of software licenses in the customer network. In addition, it

securely interacts with the license server at Cisco.com for license fulfillment, and it generally requires Internet

connectivity from the host on which Cisco License Manager is installed. Some customers have isolated networks

with no Internet connectivity and therefore may not be able to make full use of Cisco License Manager

functionality. This paper describes how to deploy Cisco License Manager in these scenarios to be able to securely

use its full functionality.

Introduction

Some customers, especially in government, the financial, and healthcare market segments, keep their networks

isolated from the Internet for security reasons. There is no Internet connectivity from their network operations

centers. As a result, these customers cannot use the full functionality of Cisco License Manager. They can

automatically discover Cisco devices with licensing capability and build up and maintain a network wide inventory

of licenses. However, any functionality related to license fulfillment, such as retrieving SKU information from a

Product Authorization Key (PAK), obtaining licenses by associating devices with PAKs, and collecting all the

licenses for a device, cannot be used because these functions require secure Internet connectivity to the license

server at Cisco.com.

Approaches

You can take advantage of the full functionality of Cisco License Manager deployed in isolated networks using four

approaches:

1. Manual license fulfillment

2. Use of proxy servers to access Cisco.com

3. Two-stage deployment

4. Two-host deployment

Note:

All the scripts mentioned in this document are located in <$CLMHome>/bin, where <$CLMHome> is the

directory in which the Cisco License Manager server is installed.