Cisco Networking Subscription

Cisco Network Subscription is a comprehensive licensing model designed to simplify the management of Cisco’s software, hardware, services, and platforms. It supports your current network investments while providing flexibility and scalability for future needs.

Key Features and Benefits:

·         Flexible Renewal and Expansion: Align your renewal dates with your financial planning, add licenses, and maintain consistent renewal dates. You can also upgrade your entitlements during or at the end of the subscription term.

·         Unified Licensing: The subscription includes unified licenses such as Cisco Wireless Essentials and Advantage. These licenses offer the flexibility to deploy your network in on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environments. It combines the best features of Cisco Meraki™ and Cisco Catalyst® products, providing consistent capabilities across different deployment models.

·         Unified Support: Provides a consistent and reliable customer support experience with hardware and software coverage.

Consolidated Licensing Details:

Cisco Wireless Essentials and Advantage licenses offer a broad range of features to support a variety of network deployment strategies:

·         Cloud Management: Manage your access points, schedule zero-touch provisioning, and software updates through Cisco Meraki Dashboard.

·         Enterprise Wireless Security: Provide strong security for your wireless networks with WPA2 and WPA3 standards.

·         Guest Access and Application Control: Create welcome pages for guest networks, manage application traffic with Layer 7 visibility, and optimize quality of service for voice and video applications.

·         IoT and Advanced Features: Enable Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) functionality, implement Wi-Fi Personal Area Network (WPN) segmentation, and support IPv6 enhancements.

Deployment Options: Cisco Network Subscription supports a variety of deployment models:

·         Cloud: Manage your network entirely with cloud-based solutions like Meraki Dashboard.

·         On-Premises: Control your network using local controllers and management tools.

·         Hybrid: Combine cloud and on-premise management based on your organization’s needs.

Unified Hardware:

The subscription provides access to unified hardware options designed to work seamlessly with different deployment models, such as the Cisco Wireless 9176 and 9178 Series Access Points.

Figure 1: Cisco Wireless 9176 Series

Figure 2: Cisco Wireless 9178 Series

 

Implementation and Compatibility: Cisco leverages the Cisco Smart Software Manager platform to enforce licensing and offers tools to monitor your usage of the licenses. Product Features: Technical specifications and supported features can be found in the Cisco Network Subscription Data Sheet. [1]

Financial Flexibility with Cisco Capital: Cisco Capital offers financing options to help manage subscription-related costs, giving budget predictability and enabling investment protection.

Briefly you can understand Cisco Network Subscription offers flexible asset management for unified management of your entire network infrastructure, supporting most deployment models with consistent support and features across portfolio of Cisco products.

References

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/networking/software/networking-subscription-ds.html