This section describes how to install, update, and remove a license. It also describes how to use flexible licensing to manage model configurations and upgrades. It includes these topics:

You perform all license management and SteelHead model upgrades in the Appliance > Licenses page.

SteelHead licenses can be permanent or temporary. Permanent licenses don’t display an expiration date in their Status column on the Licenses page; temporary licenses display an expiration date in their Status column. For example, evaluation licenses typically expire in 60 days and display a date within that range.

The system warns you two weeks before a license expires with the Expiring License alarm. After a license expires, the system warns with an Expired License alarm. You can add a license to extend the functionality of an expiring licenses. If multiple licenses exist for a feature, the system uses the license with the latest expiration date.

RiOS provides a flexible way to manage SteelHead licenses, model configurations, and upgrades. Rather than a performing an incremental model upgrade or replacing an appliance, RiOS provides specification licenses that configure specific performance characteristics of an appliance. A specification license points to a specific, validated model and includes the required license and the hardware specification. If a model upgrade requires additional hardware, the specification license determines which hardware is necessary to complete the upgrade.

By activating a specification license on an appliance you can transform the capabilities of the appliance to meet performance characteristics for any model within a platform family.

Some model upgrades require new hardware components. To accomplish this, order a hardware kit that contains the additional hardware from Riverbed Support or Sales. For more information, see the Upgrade and Maintenance Guide.

After adding the required license to the SteelHead, activate the hardware specification and add the extra hardware instead of replacing the appliance.

This table shows the flexible licensing and upgrade possibilities, listed by appliance model.

For details about hardware specifications that require hardware upgrades, see the Upgrade and Maintenance Guide.

This table describes where to find more information on flexible licensing tasks.

This section describes how to request and fetch a license manually from the Riverbed license portal or install a license manually after receiving it from Riverbed Support or Sales.

RiOS simplifies license management by providing an automated way to fetch and activate licenses for Riverbed products. You no longer have to manually activate individual appliances and install the licenses.

Fetching a license is restricted for read-only users such as monitor and role-based management (RBM) users with read-only access for General Settings (permissions are granted on the Administration > Security: User Permissions page).

The SteelHead automatically contacts the Riverbed license portal and downloads the licenses. The Licensing page displays a success message or the Alarm Status page reports an actionable error message.

At the time of the next scheduled automatic license fetch, the SteelHead automatically contacts the Riverbed license portal and downloads the new licenses. The Licensing page displays a success message or the alarm Status page reports an actionable error message.

The Licensing page displays a success message or the alarm Status page reports an actionable error message.

You can use a hardware specification license to upgrade a model. Some model upgrades require additional hardware. When the appliance has the required hardware, activating the hardware specification upgrades the appliance to the new model number. When the existing hardware isn’t adequate, a hardware required message appears after the hardware specification description.

This section describes how to upgrade an appliance model.

When the upgrade is complete, the appliance is transformed into the new model. The model number appears on the appliance banner in the upper-right corner of the page. The appliance retains its original serial number.

For more details, see the Upgrade and Maintenance Guide.

We recommend that you keep old licenses in case you want to downgrade to an earlier software version; however, in some situations you might want to remove a license.