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 8Gb license, the ports which are online and already running at 8Gb would not
be disturbed until the port goes offline or the switch is rebooted. The behavior would return to its
pre-license state maximum speed of 4Gb.

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. You will need to 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, then it is not
blocked. If you are using NTP to synchronize the time between your network devices, including switches or
enterprise-class platforms, then you should not attempt to change system date and time when a time based
license is installed.

High Availability considerations

Whenever license database is modified then it is synchronized with the standby CP. When the active CP is
Fabric OS 6.1.x and has time-based licenses installed, and the standby CP is Fabric OS 6.0.0 or earlier
then, upon HA failover the time-based license would no longer be supported on the director or
enterprise-class platform. You would not have access to the time-based licensed feature until the CPs Fabric
OS 6.1.x or later. If both CPs have a Fabric OS 6.1.x or later there will be 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, then 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 will not be able to view it through the licenseShow command. Expired
licenses will have an output string of License has expired. Raslog warning messages will be
generated every hour for licenses present in the database which have expired or which are going to expire
in the next five days. If your license has expired, you will need to 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
need to generate a license key from a transaction key supplied with your purchase, see
license key" on page 35.
"Generating a
Fabric OS 6.1.x administrator guide 39