New to SNOW & Licensing - Downgrade Rights question

SnowCat asked a question.

May 9, 2018 at 7:00 AM

Hi there,

We have just purchased snow and are currently in Pilot phase. I'm trying to gain further understanding of licensing, please see my case below!

Trying to add licenses for Cisco Jabber (a rather complicated one). The telecoms manager was very specific in saying that we don't have Downgrade rights for this. However that we are allowed to have lower versions of the product, just not to downgrade to them.

So in this case, should I or should I not select downgrade rights? As it stands, we are non-compliant in lower versions without this ticked.

Any help appreciated!

Thanks,

Gemma

Software & License Management

traceyperkin
8 years ago
Hi Gemma, I'd recommend centralising all your licence entitlement records together and track your procurement history. Your manager may be referencing that you have purchased x number at v8, x number at v9 etc. Once you have everything in one place you should be able to understand the history of the product within your organisation and match this against your inventory. Hope this helps. Regards Tracey
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Community Manager (Flexera Software)
8 years ago
Hi Gemma, if you select Downgrade Rights on a certain license, free licenses of this particular version will be downgraded according to the Downgrade Path, if lower versions have a negative compliance. The Downgrade Path is set by our Software Recognition Service and can be seen under Edit application -> Downgrade path . The products on the left are in the downgrade path by default. If you want to limit this to certain versions, simply drag them from left to right. If you are not allowed to downgrade, you definitely have to deselect Downgrade rights , whilst adding a license. If you then have a negative compliance on another version, you mights licenses for this version as well. /marcel
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- SnowCat
  8 years ago
  Thanks very much for the response! It definitely sounds like I need some more clarification as to what rights are allowed for this software. I'm still awaiting for him to send over the agreement so i believe this will help. As for my learning, are you saying if he says there are no 'downgrade rights' then we cannot be licensed for lower versions? In order to become compliant we would need to update Jabber to the latest version? (apologies for my lack of knowledge, I'm very new to all this!!) Thanks again, Gemma
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  - Community Manager (Flexera Software)
    8 years ago
    Hi Gemma, software consists of a version and sometimes an edition. In your case, the software is called Cisco Jabber and the version - according to your license document - is (let's say) 10.6. Then you are in first place entitled to use Cisco Jabber 10.6 in the entitled amount of installations. Every license document states, what else to do and not to do with your entitlement. You will find information about upgrades and downgrades. This means: If you have unlimited downgrade rights, you can use every version, that is lower than 10.6. Sometimes downgrade rights are limited to a number of lower versions. If you have upgrade rights, you can use higher versions than 10.6. This often comes through maintenance agreements. When your maintenance agreement runs out, you are sometimes entitled to use the latest version, that was released at the last day of your maintenance period. This is only a very short introduction and does by far not cover every case. The whole licensing structure can be very complicated. I would definitely consider to contact professional services for your licensing tasks. If you have further questions, don't hesitate to ask! Happy to help you /marcel
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    SnowCat
    8 years ago
    Thanks a lot, that's very helpful. I do have a License Manager who is helping my learning but is not always readily available! Thanks again, Gemma
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