Good news or bad? IOS v15

astorrs

Come on people the target of this licensing/activation change isn't people using simulators, like others have said it's large Enterprises with hundreds/thousands of devices. All of them running the up-to-date IOS versions/feature sets - the problem is only a handful have SmartNet contracts and even fewer were purchased with the feature set they are running.

Cisco "looses" millions of dollars like this every year and the internal pressure to do something about it obviously reached high enough. The problem with that argument though is that much of those losses are artificial since if the Enterprise was actually forced to pay for all those upgrades/feature sets they would more carefully evaluate if they needed them or not. End result is some increased revenue, but I'd question how significant it will end up being.

Like the hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost revenue all the music companies lost from each person who downloaded music online - because we all know they were all go to buy all of those songs legitimately.

DevilWAH

astorrs wrote: »

Come on people the target of this licensing/activation change isn't people using simulators, like others have said it's large Enterprises with hundreds/thousands of devices. All of them running the up-to-date IOS versions/feature sets - the problem is only a handful have SmartNet contracts and even fewer were purchased with the feature set they are running.

But this is the problem, like with music they are not out to get me when I copy a CD I have purchased on to both mine and my wife's mp3 player.

They want to stop the sharing of music among millions across the internet. However the trouble is, that by adding DRM to music they prevent the "legimite" copying as well as the "criminal" copying.

I agree I don't think CISCO care much about people using copies of IOS in lab envirme environments nts (the may not admit they allow, it but they seem happy to tolerate it).

However what concerns many people is that when they go after the big companies and the people who abuse it, us small fry may be brushed aside as collateral damage.

In a way its fair enough, they don't say they support second hand equipment, or people wanting to do training. So if you have second hand equipment with a licences feature set on it then that will be fine to use (you just wont be able to swap it for an updated one). IT's not going to get back dated to stuff already out there.

All I think people would like to see is CISCO make sure there is still a way for people to get hold of evaluation IOS's at a reasonable price (or free ).

Like I am happy to pay for books, and used kit, I would also be happy to pay a small cost to get hold of a legitimate copy of an IOS from CISCO. When I say reasonable cost, I would say the entire CCNP IOS set for the same or less than the cost of the cert guide. Ie, 3 or 4 devices with unlimited use with in one lab. Licences to me.

After all CISCO would have to develop a special IOS set for this purpose, so I don't have an issue paying them to do this.

Aldur

astorrs wrote: »

Come on people the target of this licensing/activation change isn't people using simulators...

I have to agree that the target isn't people using sims but I don't think it's a far cry to say that it will hugely affect people using sims.

It probably wasn't right of me to say that people using sims will be the only ones affected. This will probably have an effect to the reasons mentioned above but I can easily see the use of Dynamips being totally wiped out with this.

tiersten

Aldur wrote: »

It probably wasn't right of me to say that people using sims will be the only ones affected. This will probably have an effect to the reasons mentioned above but I can easily see the use of Dynamips being totally wiped out with this.

No. This won't affect dynamips at all.

The new IOS 15.0 licensing system for IOS feature sets is only active for the new ISR G2 routers. Older routers like the original ISRs or the 7200 NPEs will still have the old system of multiple IOS files.

If Cisco discontinue support for the 7200 NPEs that Dynamips supports then yes, you will have a problem but that won't be caused by the licensing system. You'd have the exact same problem if Cisco hadn't ever added this licensing system.

Paul Boz

Aldur wrote: »

I have to agree that the target isn't people using sims but I don't think it's a far cry to say that it will hugely affect people using sims.

It probably wasn't right of me to say that people using sims will be the only ones affected. This will probably have an effect to the reasons mentioned above but I can easily see the use of Dynamips being totally wiped out with this.

Why? You can pass most Cisco certs on 12.2 IOS (or 12.3 if you're fancy). People have been using old gear to study for modern tests for years and I don't see that changing. I'm sure you'll still be able to use 2600 series routers to study for the next five years or more.

Aldur

tiersten wrote: »

No. This won't affect dynamips at all.

The new IOS 15.0 licensing system for IOS feature sets is only active for the new ISR G2 routers. Older routers like the original ISRs or the 7200 NPEs will still have the old system of multiple IOS files.

If Cisco discontinue support for the 7200 NPEs that Dynamips supports then yes, you will have a problem but that won't be caused by the licensing system. You'd have the exact same problem if Cisco hadn't ever added this licensing system.

I understand that the licencing won't affect dynamips with the current router/IOS support like you mentioned. But there still seems to be the same problem if newer routers that require the IOS licencing. In essence they couldn't be supported, due to the licencing issues, and so there would be no development for them.

Paul Boz wrote: »

Why? You can pass most Cisco certs on 12.2 IOS (or 12.3 if you're fancy). People have been using old gear to study for modern tests for years and I don't see that changing. I'm sure you'll still be able to use 2600 series routers to study for the next five years or more.

True, you can use older gear to study for most certs so you do have a good point in that this won't affect cert study with sims like dynamips for 5+ years. I just feel sorry for the new guy getting into networking in 5 or so years that can't do any studying with a sim like dynamips. I'm sure there will be other alternatives but who knows.

Paul Boz

Aldur wrote: »

True, you can use older gear to study for most certs so you do have a good point in that this won't affect cert study with sims like dynamips for 5+ years. I just feel sorry for the new guy getting into networking in 5 or so years that can't do any studying with a sim like dynamips. I'm sure there will be other alternatives but who knows.

5+ years from now isn't really my problem

jeanathan

This all begs the question, are there too many network engineers?

With an excessive qualified labor pool there is little risk for cisco to lock down the IOS licensing and generate more profit from education and business users.

I find this classiest in terms of education what do you think?

Cisco outpaces Juniper in advertising, but I admit even with the labor pool in cisco's favor Juniper could make a grab for market share by outdoing cisco's offering in educational resources for future telcom, network, and IT admins.

Speaking of which I actually find most Cisco press books of poor quality compared to INE, Train-signal, CBT Nuggets, and Cisco employee documentation.

Btw, johnwest43 don't give them any ideas!

tiersten

Aldur wrote: »

But there still seems to be the same problem if newer routers that require the IOS licencing. In essence they couldn't be supported, due to the licencing issues, and so there would be no development for them.

Not really. That is a hurdle further along the track regarding support for newer router architectures in dynamips.

Cisco hardware does contain a large number of commodity components like Ethernet chips from Intel & DEC, CPUs from Motorola & PMC and WiFi chipsets from Atheros. This made it possible to create dynamips because these parts are documented elsewhere or have existing code. The newer routers like the ISRs have PCI bridge chips that require NDAs + contracts and Cisco ASICs which won't be documented at all outside of Cisco.

It is these new undocumented components that is preventing the support of newer architectures in dynamips. When the 7200 gets dropped totally from IOS which will be a long time, then there may be a push to start the reverse engineering effort to make an ISR/ISR G2 work.

What would be possible is similar to how PEMU deals with ASA/PIX images already. You can specify the "hardware" serial number which gets inserted into the correct points in memory so you can use a real activation code.

Either way, the licensing system isn't to prevent people from using dynamips.

astorrs

Aldur wrote: »

I have to agree that the target isn't people using sims but I don't think it's a far cry to say that it will hugely affect people using sims.

Oh it will definitely have an effect on them in the future. There just seemed to be a lot of people here accusing them of going after the little guys, when (unfortunate as it may be) that's just a side-effect and they likely don't care about home labs (in the scheme of things) since it costs them nothing yet increases product awareness/evangelism/etc.

Aldur

tiersten wrote: »

What would be possible is similar to how PEMU deals with ASA/PIX images already. You can specify the "hardware" serial number which gets inserted into the correct points in memory so you can use a real activation code.

Either way, the licensing system isn't to prevent people from using dynamips.

Very interesting, especially about the ASA/PIX images and how they work, I didn't know about that. There may be an affect to sims like Dynamips but they may be still usable.

astorrs wrote: »

Oh it will definitely have an effect on them in the future. There just seemed to be a lot of people here accusing them of going after the little guys, when (unfortunate as it may be) that's just a side-effect and they likely don't care about home labs (in the scheme of things) since it costs them nothing yet increases product awareness/evangelism/etc.

Yea, the theme was definitely taking that route. The little guy is not the target but like you said will unfortuantely get caught in the wake.

mikej412

5 years ago there were people were complaining that used routers were too expensive and Cisco would lose market share if they didn't provide free rack access to people wanting to get their CCNAs.

And simulators like Boson and RouterSim aren't IOS based emulators like Dynamips or IOU (IOS on UNIX)

DevilWAH

Paul Boz wrote: »

5+ years from now isn't really my problem

Well it is in a way, becasue in 5 years these will be the new kids ciomming that we will have to employ and train.

astorrs

DevilWAH wrote: »

Well it is in a way, becasue in 5 years these will be the new kids ciomming that we will have to employ and train.

Paul Boz

DevilWAH wrote: »

Well it is in a way, becasue in 5 years these will be the new kids ciomming that we will have to employ and train.

Still not my problem.

mikej412

DevilWAH wrote: »

Well it is in a way, becasue in 5 years these will be the new kids ciomming that we will have to employ and train.

Wait!! I thought Cisco was going to be out of business in 5 years because no one could afford the earn the CCNA and there would be no one to support the Cisco products

That probably means that in 5 years it will be a Juniper problem and I'll be moderating a Fly Fishing Forum somewhere.... maybe I should start to learn Fly Fishing now.

Aldur

mikej412 wrote: »

Wait!! I thought Cisco was going to be out of business in 5 years because no one could afford the earn the CCNA and there would be no one to support the Cisco products

That probably means that in 5 years it will be a Juniper problem and I'll be moderating a Fly Fishing Forum somewhere.... maybe I should start to learn Fly Fishing now.

I'm sensing a think layer of sarcasm here... maybe even a multi-layer cake of scarcasm...

Ok, but seriously, Cisco certification will continue to march on, just maybe less options available for people to do so.

mikej412

Aldur wrote: »

I'm sensing a think layer of sarcasm here... maybe even a multi-layer cake of scarcasm...

Yeah.

It would be nice if Cisco kept supporting the Cisco Network Academy and developing packet tracer -- and eventually made it work and gave it away free.

It would be nice if Cisco made a Dynamips only version of a kitchen sink IOS image and made it available for free.

It would be nice if everything in the world was free and people only worked because they wanted to.

But I'm going to hold my breath.....

Edit: But now that I think about, if IBM had given away free mainframes so people could learn to program they'd still be in business and I could have started my IT career that much sooner....

TheShadow

Nice thread until Mike started dreaming. Why would anyone want to learn COBOL sooner. The horror... the horror...

mikej412

TheShadow wrote: »

Why would anyone want to learn COBOL sooner.

What is that thing you call COBOL? I was thinking more along the lines of Assembler or Fortran.

astorrs

mikej412 wrote: »

What is that thing you call COBOL? I was thinking more along the lines of Assembler or Fortran.

Now now Mike you've got to stop using foul language(s) on these forums or you're gonna get banned...

notgoing2fail

Please guys! I came to the Cisco world to get away from programming!!! ACK!!!

mikej412

notgoing2fail wrote: »

Please guys! I came to the Cisco world to get away from programming!!! ACK!!!

I was doing UNIX X-Windows programming (with Motif) when TCL (the Tk extensions) was supposed to become a quick "windowing scripting language"..... imagine my horror to find TCL on Cisco routers.

Of course, that was also back in the day when the new fangled 4th generation languages were going to make programmers obsolete -- which is about the same way Cisco software licenses are going to make Cisco Certifications obsolete (or unattainable).

notgoing2fail

mikej412 wrote: »

I was doing UNIX X-Windows programming (with Motif) when TCL (the Tk extensions) was supposed to become a quick "windowing scripting language"..... imagine my horror to find TCL on Cisco routers.

Of course, that was also back in the day when the new fangled 4th generation languages were going to make programmers obsolete -- which is about the same way Cisco software licenses are going to make Cisco Certifications obsolete.

Oh boy, I remember the TCL/Tk days..... BTW, where is Perl 6? That was suppose to be the latest and greatest Perl ever....or maybe it's out now and I've totally fallen behind...

Forsaken_GA

mikej412 wrote: »

..... imagine my horror to find TCL on Cisco routers.

Your tears..... I feed on them!