Hardware licensing

With the introduction of pay-as-you-grow licensing, FP4-based assemblies (IOMs and XMAs) now include variants with license levels. These levels define the capacity and functionality of the assembly. The capacity controls aspects such as the number and types of connectors that can be configured, as well as the total connector bandwidth. Licensing also controls the number of user (based on configuration) hardware egress queues and egress policers that are available per forwarding plane. For a more complete description of the levels available for a particular assembly, see the associated Installation Guide.

The license level must be provisioned for the assembly at the same time as the card type or MDA type is provisioned. Each assembly has a set of levels applicable to that particular IOM or XMA that are defined using mnemonic strings. For example, an assembly may have a level 'cr1200g' which refers to a functional level of 'core routing' and a capacity maximum bandwidth of 1.2 Tb/s. A second example of a license level is 'he2400g+', which refers to a functional level of 'high scale edge routing' and a capacity level of a bandwidth of 2.4 Tb/s but with Intelligent Fan In/Out to a higher bandwidth.

When an assembly is installed in the chassis, the license level encoded into the equipped assembly must match the value provisioned for the assembly. If they do not match, the assembly cannot become active in the chassis. The only exception is that a variant of the assembly with the maximum functional and capacity level is allowed to come up in a slot provisioned as any level; the restrictions in effect are at the provisioned level, but this allows this specific assembly to be used to replace any other level of that assembly if necessary.

The following example shows the provisioning of an XCM with two XMAs. The first XMA is a two complex, 2.4T 24-connector QSFP28 XMA with a license level of er2400g (edge routing, 2.4 Tb/s) and the second XMA is a two complex, 2.4T 6-connector CFP8 XMA with a license level of he1600g (high scale edge routing, 4 connector 1.2Tbps):

*A:bkvm20# configure card 4 card-type "xcm2-x20"
*A:bkvm20# configure card 4 mda 1 mda-type "x24-100g-qsfp28" level "er2400g"
*A:bkvm20# configure card 4 mda 2 mda-type "x6-400g-cfp8" level "he1600g"
*A:bkvm20# show mda
===============================================================================
MDA Summary
===============================================================================
Slot  Mda   Provisioned Type                            Admin     Operational
                Equipped Type (if different)            State     State
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4     1     x24-100g-qsfp28:er2400g                     up        up
      2     x6-400g-cfp8:he1600g                        up        up
===============================================================================

The show card and show mda output display both the type and level of the assembly and indicates when there is a difference between the provisioned and installed levels. In the following example, the first XMA has a provisioned value matching the installed assembly and the second XMA has a difference in the provisioned and installed assembly.

*A:bkvm20# show mda 4/1 detail
===============================================================================
MDA 4/1 detail
===============================================================================
Slot  Mda   Provisioned Type                            Admin     Operational
                Equipped Type (if different)            State     State
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4     1     x24-100g-qsfp28:er2400g                     up        up
MDA Licensing Data
    Licensed Level                : er2400g
    Description                   : 2.4T, 24c, Edge Routing
*A:bkvm20# show mda 4/2 detail
===============================================================================
MDA 4/2 detail
===============================================================================
Slot  Mda   Provisioned Type                            Admin     Operational
                Equipped Type (if different)            State     State
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4     2     x6-400g-cfp8:he2400g                        up        provisioned
            x6-400g-cfp8:he1600g
MDA Licensing Data
    Licensed Level                : he1600g
    Description                   : 1.6T, 4c, High Scale Edge Routing

The connector and bandwidth constraints of a card or MDA are viewed using the show licensing command.

*A:bkvm18>config>card>mda# show licensing 1/1
===============================================================================
Connector           MAC  Licensed  Restrictions
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/1/c1              1    Yes       None
1/1/c2              1    Yes       None
1/1/c3              1    Yes       None
1/1/c4              1    Yes       None
1/1/c5              1    No        No Breakout Allowed
1/1/c6              1    No        No Breakout Allowed
1/1/c7              2    Yes       None
1/1/c8              2    Yes       None
1/1/c9              2    Yes       None
1/1/c10             2    Yes       None
1/1/c11             2    No        No Breakout Allowed
1/1/c12             2    No        No Breakout Allowed
1/1/c13             3    Yes       None
...

The number of hardware egress user queues and egress user policers (total, allocated, and free), that are dependent on the operational license level of the card, XIOM or MDA containing the FP, are displayed using the tools dump resource-usage card fp command.

*A:PE# tools dump resource-usage card 1 fp 1
===============================================================================
Resource Usage Information for Card Slot #1 FP #1
===============================================================================
                                                    Total  Allocated       Free
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
                          Egress User Queues |     131072        384     130688
                        Egress User Policers |     393215          0     393215
...
===============================================================================

The tools dump resource-usage card fp command also displays the number of hardware egress queues available on the related FP that is dependent on the configured allocation of the percentage of ingress queues.