[c-nsp] Rehosting a perpetual CSR1000V license

[Saku Ytti]

On Thu, 23 Jul 2020 at 21:08, Nick Hilliard <nick at foobar.org> wrote:

> The whole idea of having your routing stack poll a remote server with a
> query which essentially asks "should I continue to operate?" with a
> default answer of "No" seems like a unusually stupid way to provision a
> network.  Regardless of the timeout parameters.

I think it's well done and I can see applications where it adds real
value to customers. For us the OPEX of dealing with licenses is too
much, we want a one-time fire and forget solution, which they offer.
But if I'd install and decom hundreds of CPEs yearly, with varying
level of features and I'd immediately transfer feature costs to
customers, this is really attractive. You buy the boxes without
licenses and you buy licenses separately, and you ship just-in-time
the license you actually need, and you return it to your pool once
you're done. If pools run dry, you get alerts and you procure more.

I also think licenses are a good idea, but often horrible execution.
Not having licenses means you're subsiding people who use features
heavily. Not having licenses also means the vendor doesn't know where
money is pouring in, should they invest in multicast, 6VPE, LISP NRE
or something else? Licenses mean  you don't subsidize other players,
you pay for features you use, vendor will understand where  to invest
NRE for better return.
Similarly as a metered Internet is a great idea, with almost
universally horrible executions. I am a heavy user, who is being
subsidized by low income moms and pops, doesn't feel fair. For my
electricity I pay separately for transmission and consumption, which
is a great and fair model. Transmission is fixed cost, use or not,
consumption is not. Uncongested Internet would be market driven fact
for metered, because in flat rate Internet dropping packets increases
margins, in metered Internet it reduces.


-- 
  ++ytti