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:

Cisco Website Manage Smart Account

Click on Virtual Accounts:

Cisco Website Virtual Accounts

Click on Create Virtual Account:

Cisco Website Virtual Accounts Create

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

Cisco Website Virtual Accounts Create Settings

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

Cisco Website Virtual Accounts Create Settings User

Click on Create Virtual Account:

Cisco Website Virtual Accounts Create Settings Final

Our new virtual account now shows up in the overview:

Cisco Website Virtual Accounts 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:

Cisco Website Smart Licensing Plug And Play

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

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Virtual Account

Go to Controller Profiles and click on Add Profile:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Controller Profile

Select Controller Type VBOND and click on Next:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Controller Profile Vbond

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

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Controller Profile Vbond Settings

Review the configuration and click on Submit:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Controller Profile Vbond Review

Click on Done:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Controller Profile Vbond Confirmation

We now see the Controller Type in the overview:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Controller Profile Vbond Overview

vEdge and cEdge licenses

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

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Software

Click on Add Software Device:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Software Add
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:
Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Software Identify Device

You should be able to create 25 device licenses in total.

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:
Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Software Identify Device Csr
In the overview, you’ll see the device licenses that we want to create:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Software Identify Device Overview
Click on Submit:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Software Identify Device Submit

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

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Software Identify Device Results
A short while later, you should receive an email that looks like this:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Email
And the devices should show up as Provisioned in the overview:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Provisioned

Serial File

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

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Provisioning File
Select Controller Versions “18.3 and newer” and click on Download:

Cisco Software Central Plug Play Devices Provisioning File Version
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.


Forum Replies

  1. Very important lesson, thanks for that.
    Still very annoying cisco did that. I am in between jobs so I have only personal account which " does not have the privileges required to access “Manage Smart Account”" , but I will open a ticket in case cisco can help.

  2. Quoted from the lesson:

    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.

    As per above license requirement can be skipped if we use 19.x, trying to figure out how? if someone has already did it then please let me know

  3. If I have organization name ABCDEF, what changes are needed below to generate the Root CA

    openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key ROOT-CA.key -sha256 -days 3652 \
    -subj "https://cdn.networklessons.com/C=NL/ST=NL/O=nwl-lab-sdwan/CN=vmanage1.lab.nwl.ai" \
    -out ROOT-CA.pem
    

  4. Any way if I want to skip the vBond IP meaning I dont want to stick with one IP. There can be any topology and I can work. I have seen one Serial.viptela File where any vBond IP can be used but that is no more valid.
    Can i mention 0.0.0.0 in vBond IP and use any IP with any lab
    any thought?

  5. Hello Asif

    The particular attributes that are in your post are X.509 attributes. In particular, they are:

    CN: CommonName
    OU: OrganizationalUnit
    O: Organization
    L: Locality
    S: StateOrProvinceName
    C: CountryName

    If you want to change the organization name to ABDCDEF you would change the “O” attribute like so:

    O=ABCDEF

    For more info about the X.509 certificate attributes, take a look at this documentation.

    As for the vBond IP, when you onboard a vEdge, you must specify the IP address of the vBond controller as seen in the initial config of the vEdge device here:

    h

    ... Continue reading in our forum

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