372 Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide
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8G licensing
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8G licensing

ATTENTION
This license is installed by default and you should not remove it.
The 8 Gbps licensing applies to the Brocade 300, 5100, 5300, and VA-40FC switches and the 8
Gbps embedded switches. The Brocade 48000 does not need the 8G license to use any of the
FC8- type blades. The following list describes the basic rules of using, adding, or removing 8G
licenses.
•Without an 8G license, even if there is an 8 Gbps SFP plugged into a port in an applicable
platform, the port would be enabled to run at a maximum speed of 4 Gbps.
•To obtain an 8G license, only the License ID from the switch is required. When you add the 8G
license, you must enter either the portDisable and portEnable commands on each individual
port on the switch, or the switchDisable and switchEnable commands on the switch, to enable
the 8 Gbps functionality.
•When you remove the 8G license, the ports which are online and already running at 8 Gbps are
not disturbed until the port goes offline or the switch is rebooted. The switch ports return to
their pre-licensed state maximum speed of 4 Gbps.

Slot-based licensing

Slot-based licensing is used on the Brocade DCX and DCX-4S platforms to support the FX8-24
blade, where capacity is equal to the number of slots. This license allows you to select the slots the
license will enable up to the capacity purchased and to increase the capacity without disrupting
slots that already have licensed features running. Each slot-based key is for a single feature.
Features utilizing slot-based licenses on the FX8-24 blade include 10GbE, Advanced Extension,
and Advanced FICON Acceleration. All prior blade features continue to be exclusively chassis-based
licenses.
Any unassigned slot-based license can be automatically assigned to applicable blades that are
detected in the chassis. If you have more applicable blades than available licenses you can
manually assign or re-assign the licenses as necessary.
Once a license is assigned to a slot whether it has been auto- or manually-assigned, do not remove
it unless manually done. This will allow for various maintenance operations to occur without having
the license move around to other slots.
The following steps must be completed for a slot-based licensed feature to be active:
1. You must have a Slot-based license installed on the platform with sufficient slot count for the
number of slots you plan to activate the feature on.
2. You must configure slots so that the licensed feature is assigned to slots. No more slots can be
configured than specified in the license.
3. You must configure the application that uses the licensed feature on the blade in the slot. That
operation verifies that the previous two steps have been successfully completed.
Once these steps are complete, the feature will work on the blade.