What do I need to know about NSP licensing?

NSP licensing

Starting with NSP Release 25.4, the Centralized License Manager (CLM) is integrated within each NSP deployment. CLM is still offered as a standalone product to manage NE licenses in deployments without NSP; however, as of NSP Release 25.4, the CLM functions have been embedded in NSP and enhanced to handle NSP system licensing. The entitlements of the NSP system license key (which is called the NSP Routing key in NSP CLM) include information about license points and feature packages.

The information contained in this section specifically refers to the NSP-integrated deployment of CLM. For information about independent CLM deployment, consult the Centralized License Manager documentation, including the CLM User Guide and the CLM Installation and Upgrade Guide.

The NSP license key is added after NSP installation. Entitlements within the NSP license key can be added, viewed, and maintained over time from the Centralized License Manager option in the NSP main menu.

You only need one NSP license key for the NSP whether you have a standalone NSP setup, or whether you have an HA or HA/DR setup.

If you intend to run NSP Simulation in addition to NSP, the NSP Simulation needs to be installed in a separate cluster. This requires another unique NSP license key for NSP Simulation.

While Automation Packages (APs) appear in the license request form, they do not require an NSP license.

NSP license key expiry notifications

The NSP checks the expiry date of the NSP license key every time a new NSP web-UI tab is opened in the browser or once a day for a web-UI tab that is already logged into the NSP. It issues alarms and banners to notify the NSP user in advance of the NSP license expiry. After the NSP license key expires, the NSP continues to operate.

Alarms

Prior to the NSP license key expiration date, NSP issues daily alarms with increasing severity levels at 180, 90, and 7 days before expiration. These alarms can be viewed in the Current Alarms view as well as in Centralized License Manager, Notifications. For more details about specific alarms, see “What does this notification mean?" in the Centralized License Manager User Guide.

NSP raises the following alarms:

  • minor alarm once every 24 hours starting 180 days prior to expiration

  • major alarm issued every 24 hours starting at 90 days before expiration

  • critical alarm 7 days before expiration and thereafter

Banners

The NSP issues banners in the NSP banner bar to notify users of the NSP license key expiry and provides information about actions that can be taken.

In most cases, users will be notified about the NSP license key expiry; however, only administrators can contact Nokia Support to acquire a new NSP licence key.

  • License key expiry in 180 days or less

    The notification only appears when the administrator is logged in. It can be closed and reappears on next login. The suggested action is to add a new NSP license key.

  • License key expiry in 90 days or less

    The notification is visible to all users and can be closed. It reappears on next login.

    The suggested action for administrators is to add a new NSP license key; for other users it is to contact the administrator.

  • License key expiry in 7 days or less

    The notification is visible to all users and cannot be closed.

    The suggested action for administrators is to add a new NSP license key; for other users it is to contact the administrator.

  • Expired license key

    After the NSP license key is expired, the notification in the banner bar can no longer be closed by any users. Adding a new NSP license key clears this notification banner.

    The suggested action for administrators is to add a new NSP license key; for other users it is to contact the administrator.

  • No license key

    If the NSP is installed without purchasing the necessary entitlements to manage the equipment, the NSP notifies users that the NSP licence key was not found. This notification is visible to all users and cannot be closed. Adding a new NSP license key clears the notification.

    The suggested action for administrators is to add a new NSP license key; for other users it is to contact the administrator.