Hardware Modules That You Can License

Overview

You can license the following hardware modules:

• SS7 Links on the SS7 Card

• Spans on the T1, E1, and J1 Line Cards

Licenses for Cards

For hardware modules on cards, you must provide the serial number on the card and the number of spans or links you want to license.

You can buy product licenses to enable hardware modules. You can buy a card initially enabled for 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, or 16 links (for an SS7 card) or spans (for a T-ONE, E-ONE, or J-ONE line card). As your needs grow, you can buy product licenses to upgrade the card in 2-link or 2-span increments as many times as you like, to the capacity of the card. You can upgrade a card in a CSP that is on-line, without interrupting service.

Important! Hardware licenses are not cumulative. For example, if you have a six span card and you purchase two spans you will have eight spans total. To upgrade to a 12 span card you will receive a license for six spans (after having purchased four additional spans). You discard the two span license because it will not be used.

All modules that you buy originally and that ship with cards remain available at all times. For example, if an SS7, T-ONE, E-ONE, or
J-ONE card is removed, if the configuration is lost, or if the system is upgraded, the licensed modules that shipped with the cards are immediately available when the system is brought back up. However, for modules that you buy licenses for later, this is not the case. You must re-download these added module licenses to re-instate those upgrades.

Licenses for Standby Line and Standby SS7 Cards

A standby line card must support the maximum number of spans of all the card it is backing up to provide total redundancy. Therefore, for a standby line card to back up all the spans on a card, it must be licensed for all the spans. For example, you might have two T-ONE cards and a standby line card, each licensed for eight spans. If you upgrade one of the line card licenses to 16 spans but you do not upgrade the standby card license to 16 spans, the standby line card will still back up only eight of the 16 spans on that card.

A Product License Key is required for both active and standby line cards. For example, if you purchase a license to upgrade a T-ONE line card by eight spans, you must also purchase a license to upgrade its corresponding standby line card by eight spans or already have the capacity in the standby card.

Before you can upgrade a standby card, it must be in an active state and the card’s Product License Key must be validated.

Hardware upgrade information cannot be transferred to a standby card if the original active card has been removed. When the active card is re-installed, the information for module decryption must be downloaded again.

Licenses for Standby Matrix Controller Cards

When a Matrix Controller card changes from Standby to Active states, the following occur:

1. The newly active Matrix Controller card receives the download for the product license. Only the active Matrix Controller card can provide license information to the other cards.

2. The newly standby Matrix Controller card also receives the product license information.