A call for educational IOS licensing

I second this . I'm staying clear of 15.0 for as long as i can, 'coz the CCIE labs don't mandate the use of 15.0 . I hope someone from CISCO watches this and hopefully act upon it.

Thanks for writing this article stretch. Your clarity of thought and wording continues to amaze me.

I think you could use temporary license.

Link

You may want to move premium licensed features from one device to another for reasons such as a change in network topology. Once you select the source and destination devices, Cisco License Manager simplifies this procedure by securely obtaining re-host permission from Cisco.com, revoking the license from the source device, and obtaining and installing the transferred license to the destination device as well as installing a temporary license for the feature being transferred to give you enough time to migrate all connections or traffic to the destination device

I fully agree with your point, Stretch.

It would be interesting to know how many Cisco 'hobbyists' are out there. With 'hobbyist' I mean somebody who has done some self-learning on Cisco technology, with Dynamips, own home lab and the compulsory stack of CCxx books.

For a parallel in the IT world, seeing how industry is currently embracing Linux, I think one important reason for its wide adoption is that there is a growing availability of advanced Linux 'hobbyists'. I wonder how important is that factor in the Cisco ecosystem.

I think Cisco does its best to forsake the community every chance it gets. They come storming into every meeting like they've already made the sale. When the engineers aren't convinced Cisco is the way to go they B-line to the Management Office to end-run the people who actually know what they're talking about.

You'll then end up arguing with your management on why YOU want to buy a Juniper or Brocade. The years of experience you've gained working on this equipment is suddenly trumped by the latest Networking article in CIO Weekly about Cisco's "new" 6500.

Cisco has never cared about the community and/or education. Anyone who's ever taken a CCNA/CCNP/CCIE test will know the internal struggle of answering the questions the RIGHT way or the "Cisco way" to pass the exam. Cisco makes all decisions with the goal of padding that bottom line as much as possible.

However, I agree with your plight. More companies need to make their software available for learning purposes at a large discount. In the end it'll help further your business more than you can ever imagine.

I think the new licensing model is probably a good thing to Cisco, but it's about 10 years too late. As mentioned, we're all entrenched in our library of IOS images for different platforms and feature sets, and this abrupt change is going to eventually kill off the home study lab. With one fell swoop, Cisco can wipe out the most easily accessible method of learning their products.

I work on thousands of pieces of Cisco gear, but there are lots of people out there studying from their couches to get a cert or just some experience to get a job or promotion or whatnot. They're screwed since they're going to have to pay for some rack time (which has its own set of problems). The idea of a free (!) educational license is a possible solution.

Very nice article Stretch, and I agree with you 100% that it will be beneficial for everyone if Cisco has an educational licensing. To go even further I would say they should offer for educational and training purpose only CCNA/CCNP/CCIE lab equipments along with licensing for a low price.

You have stated “Yes, it's a development which requires a significant investment by Cisco and yields no direct return”. To add to your comment, my personal opinion is part of the reason Cisco is so successful today is because of the Army of technical people like us who has the know how to support their products. We are the one who recommends, and in many cases make the decision to buy Cisco products. In order for Cisco to maintain this and their dominance in the market place, it is in their best interest to educate new technical people who will be the future decision makers. Just my two cents, Thank you.

I cannot agree more.

On the other hand, the universal image / feature licensing scheme only applies to devices that were newly introduced, like the x9xx ISR and some switches.

For older hardware, like x8xx ISR routers, Cisco still provides various feature set image files with 15.0. Of course, this can change over time (think when these boxes are EOL'd), and certainly does not obsolete anything from what you wrote in the article. A hobbyist license would be great, I hope it wont be crippled as much as the former IRIX hobbyist licensing model for example.

Stretch, you started a spirited discussion :)

The new licensing is only for the ISR G2 platforms. The ISR G1 (1800,2800,3800 and the 7200) will continue on the current path of individual compiled images even on 15.0.

FYI- The new licensing method comes with IP Base for free.

Well, the CCIE has become almost worthless. I hope the do license the IOS and make it hard as heck to get the CCIE in the future. Between Dynamips and being able to purchase the labs out of China, the cert has really lost the respect in the industry. When I did my two CCIE's, it required a substantial investment in hardware and study. Sadly, it has become low hanging fruit that almost anyone can obtain. I wont post my name or number for privacy but I could care less if you dont believe I am a real IE. I speak from experience...

Dont believe me? Then ask yourself why Cisco stopped reporting the number of CCIE's worldwide. The last month reported on CCO showed a decline in the number of R/S CCIE's.

Cisco has lost their focus. What is their core competence now? Wireless, Voice, Security, cable modems, servers? Cisco is headed for troubled times - think IBM and Novell.

With six CCIE certs available, it has become just another money making venture for Chambers.

I moved over to Juniper serveral years ago. If your smart, you will do the same. I am working on the JNCIE now. Juniper is becoming the Cisco of the mid to late 90's. Aggresive and eagar with a focused vision. It is sad, I drank the Cisco kool-aid for many years. It was a fun ride, but its time to move on.

"Up until now, the use of IOS images by students and other individuals in their home labs has been generally avoided as a topic of discussion altogether and accepted as a fact of the industry."

You hit the nail right on the head with that statement. How are we suppose to play with the equipment and get acquainted if we cant even use all of the features. I'm sitting here learning on some 2924's when real world businesses would have 2960Gs.

Keep up the good fight.