Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 365
53-1001763-02
Chapter
16

Administering Licensing

In this chapter
Licensing overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
The Brocade 7800 Upgrade license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
ICL licensing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
8G licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Slot-based licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Time-based licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Universal Time-based licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
Viewing installed licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Activating a license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Adding a licensed feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Removing a licensed feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
Ports on Demand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Licensing overview

Feature licenses may be part of the licensed paperpack supplied with your switch software; if not,
you can purchase licenses separately from your switch vendor, who will provide you with
transaction keys to unlock the features. License keys are provided on a per-product and per-feature
basis. Each switch within a fabric needs its own licensing.
NOTE
To preserve licenses on your switch, perform a configUpload prior to upgrading or downgrading your
Fabric OS.
If you downgrade your Fabric OS to an earlier version, some licenses associated with specific
features of Fabric OS may not work.
Licences can be associated with a feature version. If a feature has a version-based license, that
license is valid only for a particular version of the feature. If you want a newer version of the
feature, you must purchase a new license. If a license is not version-based, then it is valid for all
versions of the feature.
Fabric OS includes basic switch and fabric support software, and support for optionally licensed
software that is enabled using license keys. Table 77 lists the optionally licensed features that are
currently available: