MSE Blog Series Part 5: Revamping the MSE Licensing Scheme

In the last MSE blog, my colleague Lucy discussed wIPS as a feature of MSE Release 7.4. To further the conversation around Release 7.4, I’m going to describe the new licensing scheme.

We at Cisco believe strongly in the mantra of valuing customer satisfaction. Feedback we received on the Mobility Services Engine (MSE) licensing scheme inspired us to make the following adjustments in a new licensing scheme, which is available as a part of the MSE software release for version 7.4 along with Advanced Location Services:

• AP-based licenses to align with Controller and Cisco Prime Infrastructure:  In the earlier releases, you needed to plan and try to predict how many Endpoints you expected on the network before buying the license. Now it’s easier to buy Location Services licenses by simply buying based on the AP count and what services from the MSE you anticipate deploying for your network.
• Simplified WIPS SKUs: Adaptive wIPS licensing scheme was already AP-based so we just reduced the number of SKUs(1-AP, 100-AP and 1000-AP SKUs) for Local Mode and Monitor Mode licenses.

  

• New Location Services License: Location Services licenses are either for Base Location Services or Advanced Location Services.
  • Base Location Services include Context Aware location, wIPS Location and Clean-Air services. (L-LS SKUs)
  • Advanced Location Services enable Base Location Services along with advanced features like Mobile Concierge and Location Analytics (L-AD-LS SKUs)

If you already have Base Location license you can upgrade to Advanced Location Services by buying the Upgrade SKUs (L-UPG-LS SKUs)

Now you must be wondering: I’m an existing customer, do I need to port my licenses to the new scheme? No. Existing customers need not worry about porting their licenses to the new scheme. Old licenses are still valid and will be automatically ported to the new scheme.

Customers with licenses generated from L-CAS or AIR-CAS SKUs will be migrated to AP based Base Location Service licenses automatically. If you want to enable Advanced Location Services, you will need to buy the Upgrade SKUs.

With AP-based SKUs for all services on MSE, fewer SKUs to choose from, and simplified classification of services, we feel licensing for the MSE will be more elegant and simpler than our earlier scheme.

We are committed to providing the best service to our customers. We hope all these features of our new licensing scheme will help make the MSE experience better for you.

For more on MSE, visit our product page and stay tuned for the next blog in the series!

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