Replace gateway hardware on open platform with central licenses

[stat4299]

It has been awhile since I replaced hardware on open platform and central managed licenses.  I am unsure of how to deal with upgrading the hardware for a gateways.  I am also planning to upgrade the software to a major version (r81.20) fresh to take advantage of r81.20's enhancements during install (disk partition alignment, etc).  I have read that 81.20 has to be installed from ISO/USB to get those enhancements.

The part I am having trouble recalling is the gateway object in the management and the license for it.  Since this is centrally managed and I want to use the same firewall objects in Smart Dashboard,  Do I have to remove the license from the old hardware using smart update/smart dashboard before shutting down the old gateway and then attach the license after re-establishing SIC with the new hardware or can I just manually export and import the license into the new hardware so that once SIC is established, the license will already be there and Smart Dashboard would be none the wiser.  It will be the same IP address for the gateway so the management would think it is the same system.  This way the old license is still on the old hardware in case I need to swap the hardware back in case of major problems.

Since this is central licensing, I can attach and detach the license as needed to different gateways.  I just haven't seen much about dealing with the central license with open platform when upgrading the hardware.

I am pretty sure the interface names will change with the new hardware but the core count will be the same.  This is a clustered (HA) gateway.

[PhoneBoy]

Yes, you will need to detach the licenses first before decommissioning the hardware.

[stat4299]

Thanks for the info.  I recall I was able to force it detached awhile back when we had a hardware failure (open platform and central licensing).  It was a long time ago though and I don't recall the specifics of that.  Regardless of that though...  So the attach somehow uniquely identifies open platform hardware and wouldn't recognize the license if I manually attached it to the new hardware during the switch to the new hardware?  I was hoping to have the license on both systems so that a swap back and forth would be quicker.  You seem to be confirming that will not work though correct?

[Bob_Zimmerman]

Attaching the license doesn’t really care about the hardware. It’s more like checking out a book at a library. The management knows its license library has a copy of that license, but it’s currently checked out to the old hardware. It won’t let you check it out to somewhere else until you check it back in. Worst case, you could always fetch licenses and contracts once you have SIC with the new hardware. The management should then realize the license is no longer checked out, and it should let you attach it to the new system.

[stat4299]

Yea,  I didn't think it would care about the hardware.  It just knows it was attached and expects it to be.  Unless the attach process uses some unique identifier during attach,  If I manually attach the license to the new open platform hardware before I put the new hardware in place, It seems like the management would think it is already attached (as it was never detached), and the license would be on the new hardware and match what the management thinks should be there.  Wouldn't it just work?

Is there is some kind of unique identifier that gets put on the old server during the attach, that management will look for to make sure it was actually attached by management?  Since this is open platform, there is not license agreement issue as the hardware is being replaced and the old hardware will no longer be used.

As I mentioned,  The idea is to have the old hardware fully functional without any delays detaching and attaching back to the old hardware in case of major problems.  I am just looking at all my options for speeding things up in case of problems.