[c-nsp] Cisco licensing

[Tony]

Hi all,

I just came across this Cisco page:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/iosswrel/prod_gen_ios_licensing.html

Which among the info on it has:

"When you purchase hardware, you also purchase the software and the license to use it. Hardware arrives with licensed software.

....

No additional fee is due when the feature set stays the same — updates require no new license."

Then there is also this page:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/iosswrel/networking_solutions_products_genericcontent0900aecd806ea5be.html

Which says:

"Update Cisco IOS Software

This refers to: Replacing one release with another without upgrading the feature set. Update to fix a bug or to replace a release that is no longer supported. Updates are free of charge."

So reading the above, it would appear that I can update all of my Cisco devices to whatever IOS I want (free of charge and free of guilt) as long as I stay within the same feature set ?

I am aware of what a feature set is. Eg. IP or IP-PLUS, FW/IDS or ENTERPRISE, etc are different feature sets.

How does the above affect going from one software "train" to another (eg. "normal" to T, S or SB train). If I still use the same feature set (eg. ENTERPRISE) in both trains is that just considered a normal update ?

This is very interesting because I was always of the opinion that you needed a valid SmartNet contract to be eligible for software updates and hence why I am asking this question.


Thanks,
Tony.