How to do a License Transfer in Cotermination

Goal

There are many scenarios that may require the transfer of a license from one Meraki dashboard organization to another. Previously, moving Co-Termination license keys between organizations could only be performed by a member of the Meraki Support team, but now this feature is available to all Meraki customers using the Co-termination model. This article will outline the process.

Pre-requisites:

The administrator requesting the transfer must have the same verified email address in the source and destination organizations.
Only administrators with Full Read-Write permissions on both source and destination organizations will be able to perform a license transfer. Read-Only organization administrators do not have permission to move licenses. SAML admins with full org access can also move licenses.
You can only move license keys that are active, and individually expired licenses cannot be moved or used to extend time in the destination organization
Close all browser tabs besides the source organization's License Info page
- Having more than one Dashboard organization open in your browser sends the user session record of the latest organization that you opened and then could result in "License move failed, Try again or contact Meraki".
Ensure all organization admins understand the science of co-term calculation to avoid negatively impacting your organization. You can also use the license co-term calculator to approximately calculate the state of licenses before initiating the move.

Note: Transferring between a Co-Termination Licensing Organization, to a Per-Device Licensing Organization or vice-versa is not possible.

Performing A License Transfer

Dashboard

Customers can transfer licenses on the dashboard UI. To initiate a license transfer on the UI, follow these steps:

Navigate to the source organization's Organization > Configure > License Info page
Scroll down to the License History section and click on the Move button next to the source license key that needs to be transferred
1. A pop-up window should allow you to select the destination organization, License operation on the destination end, and quantity of the product models associated with the key.
Select the destination organization from the dropdown
Select the desired license operation

To understand more about license operations in co-termination, please refer to this documentation.

6. Slide the slider to select the device type and count to be moved to the destination organization.

You can move the entire key with all counts of device type licenses available in the key, or you can split the transfer with the selected device type and count to be moved to the destination org.

7. Verify all the details and once confirmed, click on the Move button.

Automation Flexibility

For all automation lovers, we have launched two new API endpoints to support license moves in co-term if you don't like to use the dashboard. Please navigate to help > API docs > under licenses: Moves a license to a different organization (co-term only) and List the licenses in a co-term organization

Example:

GET: Licenses in a co-term organization

POST: Moves a co-term license to a different co-term organization

Product-Specific Behavior

Subject	Scenario	Expected Result
MX: SD-WAN to Enterprise or Advanced Sec	When you move Source: SD-WAN to Destination: Enterprise or Advanced Sec	The move will be successful Target Org will upgrade to SD-WAN
MX: Enterprise to SD-WAN	When you move Source: Enterprise to Destination: SD-WAN	The move will fail Error: License move failed with an error response: Can't add license ---: ["License --- is an Enterprise license, but your organization's existing license is for SD-WAN
MX: Advanced Sec to Enterprise	When you move Source: Advanced Sec to Destination: Enterprise	The move will be successful Target Org will upgrade to Advanced Sec
MX: Enterprise to Advanced Sec	When you move Source: Enterprise to Destination: Advanced Sec	The move will fail License move failed with an error response: Can't add license ---: [""License --- is an Enterprise license, but your organization's existing license is for Advance Security
MX: Advanced Sec to SD-WAN	When you move Source: Advanced Sec to Destination: SD-WAN	The move will fail License move failed with an error response: Can't add license ---: [""License --- is an Advance Security license, but your organization's existing license is for SD-WAN
MR Upgr: Quantity mismatch	When you have 4 MR devices; MR Enterprise Licenses in the destination and you are trying to move 2 MR Upgrade licenses	The move will fail Error Response: Please apply 4 MR Upgrade licenses to cover the existing 4 MR Enterprise licenses and to upgrade your organization to MR Advanced Enterprise
MR Adv/Upgr: Enterprise to Advanced	This Operation is not allowed at the moment. Stay Tuned we are working to support this as soon as possible
MI: Enterprise + MI/Advanced Sec + MI to SD-WAN	When you move Source: Enterprise +MI or Advanced Sec + MI to Destination: SD-WAN	The move will fail Error Response: License move failed. Can't add license -"License --- is a Meraki Insight license, but your organization's existing SD-WAN license is incompatible with this license
MI: Enterprise + MI to Advanced Sec or vice versa	When you move Source: Assigned/Non-Assigned MI license (Enterprise + MI) Destination: Advanced Sec OR vice versa	The move will fail Error Response: License move failed. Please try again or contact Meraki Support
MI: Enterprise + MI to Enterprise + MI	When you move Source: Assigned/Non-Assigned MI license (Enterprise + MI) Destination: Enterprise	The move will be successful Caution: The assigned device data will be stored for a few days before it will be deleted forever if moved so assign more licenses to continue using the services
MI: Advanced Sec + MI to Advanced Sec +MI	When you move Source: Assigned/Non-Assigned MI license (Enterprise + MI) Destination: Enterprise	The move will be successful Caution: The assigned device data will be stored for a few days before it will be deleted forever if moved so assign more licenses to continue using the services
MV: MV-CA	When you move Source: Assigned/Non-Assigned MV-CA license	The move will be successful Caution: The assigned device data will be stored for a few days before it will be deleted forever if moved so assign more licenses to continue using the services
SM Legacy or SM FREE 100	When you move free System Manager licenses.	The move will fail Caution: Since there are no license keys for SM Legacy and SM FREE 100 so this move will not be possible

What if....

What if you want to undo a move?

There's no undo button, but you can initiate another transfer of the key back to the source or a different destination as long as you are a full org admin in the destination org.

Caveats:

Check that the license you are moving was not claimed prior to the most recent Renewal
- By moving such keys, you surrender any weight the key added to your current expiration date and risk forcibly expiring the source organization
Check that the license will not forcibly expire any licensing due to its order in the license history
- Mimic the source organization using the License calculator tool, and then remove the keys you intend to move.
- If it calculates a date in the future, with the expected license limit, then the move should not forcibly expire any of the organization’s licensing.
- If you do not check the state using the calculator and are unaware of the co-termination calculations, moving a license can expire some or all licenses in the source organization, so proceed with caution or open a case on Support home page.

WARNING: Moving a license is not always a reversible process (even by means of returning the license to its original organization). The order in which licensing is claimed shapes the organization's expiration date/license limit, and some license moves can cause a need for additional licensing to be purchased. If you are not certain about the effects of your intended license move, open a case on the Support home page.

What if the license transfer fails?

The first rule of thumb is to refresh your browser after every move to look at newly updated data on the dashboard.

Please refresh your browser and try again
Ensure that you are moving a license key that is active and is not expired
Ensure that the key is valid and not moved to another organization already, rendering the key in question stale.
Ensure the edition of the organizations
Ensure that you are not moving the co-termination license key to a PDL organization
Ensure that you have verified your email address on both the source and destination org
Ensure that both organizations have at least one network.
Check the Organization > Changelog page to troubleshoot further
If you are an MSP, please do not open multiple tabs of different organizations in your browser when moving a license from one org to another, as it sends the user session record of the last organization that you opened and then fails with "License move failed, Try again or contact Meraki"

If nothing works, don't hesitate to contact the licensing support team or generate a dashboard case.

What if you unintentionally move SD-WAN or Advanced Sec License Key to an Enterprise MX Organization Edition or SD-WAN License Key to Advanced Sec MX Organization Edition and automatically upgrade your destination organization and wish to downgrade?

You can move the higher MX edition key back to its source or create a dummy/holding org and move the key to it. This will downgrade your organization to the already available MX product edition tier.