Cisco SD-WAN Plug and Play Connect Device Licenses

If you want to add vEdge or cEdge licenses to your Cisco SD-WAN network, you’ll need some device “licenses”. In Cisco SD-WAN versions before 20.x, it was possible to skip this. If you build a lab using version 20.X or later, you need to create these licenses on the Cisco.com website and import them on your vManage controller. If you use version 20.x or later, follow this lesson and I’ll explain how to create these licenses.

Head over to https://software.cisco.com if you want to follow along.

Virtual Account

If you want to separate your lab licenses from your other licenses, you should create a virtual account. Let me show you how to do this. Under Download and manage, and Manage Smart Account, click on Manage account:

Click on Virtual Accounts:

Click on Create Virtual Account:

Add a name, set the access level to “private“, and click on Next:

We don’t have to add extra users so click on Next:

Click on Create Virtual Account:

Our new virtual account now shows up in the overview:

You now have a virtual account that you can use for your lab licenses.

Controller

We need to add our vBond controller that the device licenses will belong to. Head back to Cisco Software Central and under Smart Licensing, look for Network Plug and Play, and click on Manage devices:

On the top right, select the virtual account we just created:

Go to Controller Profiles and click on Add Profile:

Select Controller Type VBOND and click on Next:

Under settings, add a Profile Name, the Organization Name that you use in your lab, and the IPv4 address of your vBond orchestrator:

Review the configuration and click on Submit:

Click on Done:

We now see the Controller Type in the overview:

vEdge and cEdge licenses

Time to create some device licenses. Under Devices, click on Add Software Devices:

Click on Add Software Device:

We’ll start with the vEdge devices. Enter VEDGE-CLOUD-DNA as the Base PID.  I want 10 device licenses and the Controller Profile is the one we just created. Click on Save to continue:

While we are at it, let’s add some licenses for the CSR1000V router as well. This can be useful if you want to test the cEdge routers. Click on Add Software Device one more time to add licenses for the CSR1000V router:

In the overview, you’ll see the device licenses that we want to create:

Click on Submit:

And you will see a message that a request has been recorded. Click on Done:

A short while later, you should receive an email that looks like this:

And the devices should show up as Provisioned in the overview:

Serial File

We can now download the file with the licenses. Go to Controller Profiles and click on Provisioning File:

Select Controller Versions “18.3 and newer” and click on Download:

This downloads the serialFile.viptela file to your computer.

You can now add this file to the vManage controller and onboard a vEdge (or cEdge) router. This is explained in the vEdge onboarding lesson.

Conclusion

You have now learned how to create device licenses for your vEdge or cEdge routers. I hope you enjoyed this lesson. If you have any questions, please leave a comment.