CMS Licensing Procedure

Today, In this post i would like to shed some light on the licensing aspect of Meeting servers, that are really important in todays digital workplaces where enterprises rapidly transforming the IT infrastructure from the legacy to new digital transformed products for better productivity.

Cisco meeting servers are one of those important transformations in the industry and lets discuss about the licensing process that involve in the CMS server.

• Register one R-CMS-K9 against your "first" node's MAC address as usual in the License Registration Portal (www.cisco.com/go/license). You'll get a cms.lic that has call bridge activation, turn activation and web bridge activation (this is just a text file with some JSON and a signature; you can open it in a text editor to see features). 

• Register all of your PAKs with "features" (branding, SMP+, PMP+, ACU, Recording, etc) against that same "first" node's MAC. If you have multiple PAKs, you'll get a new cms.lic as you do each one, which will have the aggregate of all the PAKs you've registered. 

• Once you've registered all of the features, then register one R-CMS-K9 against each additional callbridge-runhing CMS node you have. You'll get a cms.lic for each of these with its own MAC, and call bridge activation and a handful of other odds-n-ends. 

• Next, for each additional CMS node you have, in the LRP visit the "Licenses" tab, then choose Move Licenses > Share License > Get Activation Code. Choose "Cisco Meeting Server (Acano)" then enter your first node (with all the features) MAC in the "source" blank, and one of your other nodes in the "Target" blank.

• Return to LRP "licenses" tab and choose "Move Licenses > Share License > Use Activation Code. Enter the code. Only tick the boxes for "features" - not for the software release key (your secondary node already has this from R-CMS-K9). 

• Proceed and note the "transaction ID" - if your license email doesn't come through, you can take this to GLO to get the license released. I haven't personally had an issue with this, but some of our engineers have. If all goes well you'll get a new cms.lic for the secondary node and it will have the callbridge/TURN/webbridge activation along with all your features. 

• If you're feeling especially generous to your customer, and have the necessary access, find their node in the LRP "devices" tab and add it to their Smart Account.