Scenarios for license expiry behavior

This document presents different scenarios of license expiry behavior in Citrix ADC MPX, SDX, and VPX instances. These scenarios help you troubleshoot license expiry behavior.

Scenario: MPX instance

You have deployed pooled licensing where the term or license expires on December 31 2020. The following are the scenarios when the new license is uploaded on Citrix ADM.

Type of license

MPX Z license Bandwidth license
Unlocks Z capacity hardware to enable pooled licensing Assigns capacity
Expires with starter pool (end of the term) Expires at the end of term

Before the term expires

If the new license is uploaded before term expires, and the old license still runs. So, two different pools of capacity available are available: old and new.

  • If the ADC client is up and running, new pooled license is successfully picked up.
  • Restart is not required.
  • The license might or might not temporarily go into grace mode.

After the term expires

If the new license is uploaded after the term expires, the existing pool of capacity expires. On January 01 2021, the ADC instance keeps running licensed until the instance is restarted.

  • If the ADC instance stays up to pick up the new license, the instance must be reconfigured (capacity reassigned).
  • Restarted is not required.
  • If the ADC instance warm restarts and no valid license file is present, the instance comes back unlicensed.

Scenario: SDX instance

You have deployed pooled licensing where the term or license expires on December 31 2020. The following are the scenarios when the new license is uploaded on Citrix ADM,

Type of license

SDX Z license Instance license Bandwidth license
Unlocks Z capacity hardware to enable pooled licensing Assigns capacity Assigns capacity Assigns capacity
Expires with the starter pool (end of the term) Expires at the end of term Expires at the end of term

Before the term expires

If the new license is uploaded before term expires, and the old license still runs. So, two different pools of capacity available are available: old and new.

  • If the ADC client is up and running, new pooled license is successfully picked up.
  • Restart is not required.
  • You might have to refresh Citrix ADM for the SDX software to fetch the assigned bandwidth or license.

After the term expires

If the new license is uploaded after the term expires, the existing pool of capacity expires. On January 01 2021, the ADC instance keeps running licensed until the instance is restarted.

  • The ADC SDX instance would be unlicensed but the existing ADC instances would continue to function as is they are restarted.
  • You must explicitly recheck-out the capacities when new licenses are uploaded on Citrix ADM.
  • At any time, restarting the SDX software is not required.

Scenario: VPX instance

You have deployed pooled licensing where the term or license expires on December 31 2020. Following are the scenarios when the new license is uploaded on Citrix ADM.

Type of license

Instance license Bandwidth license
Assigns capacity Assigns capacity
Expires at the end of term Expires at the end of term

Note

vCPU doesn’t need an instance license.

Before the term expires

If the new license is uploaded before term expires, and the old license still runs. So, two different pools of capacity available are available: old and new.

  • If the ADC client is up and running, new pooled license is successfully picked up.
  • Restart is not required.
  • The license might or might not temporarily go into grace mode.

After the term expires

If the new license is uploaded after the term expires, the existing pool of capacity expires. On January 01 2021, the ADC instance keeps running licensed until the instance is restarted.

  • If the ADC instance stays up to pick up the new license, you must explicitly recheck out the capacities when new licenses are uploaded to Citrix ADM (capacity reassigned).
  • Restarted is not required.
  • If the ADC restarts, it starts consuming the licenses. As a workaround to avoid restart, reconfigure pooled licensing.
Scenarios for license expiry behavior