Time-Based Licenses; High Availability Considerations; Firmware Upgrade And Downgrade Consideration; Configupload And Configdownload Considerations - HP A7533A - Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch Base Administrator's Manual

• When you remove the 8-Gbps license, the ports that are online and already running at 8-Gbps are not
disturbed until the port goes offline or the switch is rebooted. The switch's ports return to their
pre-licensed state maximum speed of 4-Gbps.

Time-based licenses

A time-based license applies a try-before-you-buy approach to certain features so that you can experience
the feature and its capabilities prior to buying the license. Once you have installed the license, you are
given a time limit to use the feature. The following lists the types of licenses that have this feature:
• High Performance Extension over FCIP
• Fabric
• Extended Fabric
• Trunking
• Advanced Performance Monitoring
If you downgrade your switch to a version earlier than 6.1.x, the time-based license will no longer be
available. The license will remain on the switch, but you will not be able to use it.
Once the time-base license is installed you cannot change the time of the switch until the time-based
license is removed. To change the time, you must remove the license, change the date, and then reinstall
the license on the switch. However, if there is any other mechanism that exists to change time, such as NTP,
it is not blocked. If you are using NTP to synchronize the time between your network devices, including
switches or enterprise-class platforms, do not attempt to change the system date and time when a
time-based license is installed.
NOTE: Visit the HP website

High Availability considerations

Whenever license database is modified, it is synchronized with the standby CP. When the active CP is
Fabric OS 6.1.0 and has time-based licenses installed, and the standby CP is Fabric OS 6.0.0 or earlier,
upon HA failover, the time-based license would no longer be supported on the director or enterprise-class
platform. You do not have access to the time-based licensed feature until the CPs have Fabric OS 6.1.0 or
later. If both CPs have Fabric OS 6.1.0 or later, there is no change to the time-based licenses or their
associated features.

Firmware upgrade and downgrade consideration

When a time-based license is present on the switch, and you downgrade the firmware to Fabric OS 6.0.0
or earlier, the firmware downgrade will be blocked.

Configupload and Configdownload considerations

The configdownload and configupload commands will download the legacy, enhanced, consumed
capacities, and time-based licenses.

Expired licenses

Once a license has expired, you can view it through the licenseShow command. Expired licenses have
an output string of License has expired. RASlog warning messages are generated every hour for licenses
present in the database that have expired or which are going to expire in the next five days. If your license
has expired, you must reboot the switch for the expiry to take affect.

Ports on Demand (POD) licensing

NOTE: See the Hardware reference guide for your switch for the specific POD licensing available.
POD licensing is ready to be unlocked in the switch firmware. Its license key may be part of the licensed
paperpack supplied with switch software, or you can purchase the license key separately from HP. You may
www.hp.com for information on HP support of time-based licenses.
Fabric OS 6.1.1 administrator guide 39