Cisco Enterprise Agreement FAQ
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Cisco Enterprise Agreement buying program information
Q. What is the Cisco
® Enterprise Agreement (Cisco EA), and what are the benefits?
A. The Cisco Enterprise Agreement is a 3- or 5-year agreement that provides enterprise-wide coverage of software and services enrollments for an easier software and services management experience than alternative buying programs. It is:
● Easy to buy: Customers receive a single agreement, term, and portal for managing license and support entitlement
● Easy to consume: On-demand deployment, anytime access to new software, and True Forward (no retroactive billing)
● Easy to manage: Financial predictability, lower cost, and better visibility with EA Workspace
Q. What can customers purchase under a Cisco EA?
A. The Cisco EA includes Cisco DNA, Data Center, Collaboration, Security Choice, and Services enrollments.
Q. What is an enrollment?
A. An enrollment is a technology architecture or set of products that customers can buy under a single agreement from Cisco. Customers can start with one enrollment and expand to include other enrollments as needed to support their business needs.
Q. What is the geographic availability for Cisco EA?
A. Cisco EA is globally available. Contact your Cisco account team for more information.
Q. Can Cisco EA cover just a portion of the customer’s company?
A. We cannot split an EA by divisions, only by legal entities. Cisco EAs require a 100% commitment from the legal entities selected in the scope of participating affiliates. If employees and/or devices reside in a separate legal entity, we can exclude that entity from the participating affiliate list, and they will not be able to use the software and services provided under the EA.
Q. How is Cisco EA different from offerings by competitive vendors?
A. Unique features of Cisco EA are its 20% user-based growth allowance (applicable for the collaboration and Security Choice enrollment), True Forward, and cross-architecture coverage.
Q. What is the End User Information Form (EUIF)?
A. The EUIF is used to understand the scope of the Cisco EA. The customer dictates the boundaries of the legal entity that is included in the Cisco EA. This document is also used to obtain customer confirmation of sizing such as the number of knowledge workers, security content users, and infrastructure devices. Refer to this document for more information:
https://community.cisco.com/t5/licensing-enterprise-agreements/cisco-enterprise-agreement-end-user-information-form-qrg/ta-p/3622747.
Q. What is the 20% user-based growth allowance?
A. During the term, customers may access additional software, Software as a Service (SaaS), and support services by up to 20% of the initial number of covered users identified in the EUIF for each enrollment (Collaboration and Security Choice) without incurring any additional charges.
Q. How does the 20% growth allowance work with different product families and models?
A. The 20% growth allowance can be used within the purchased enrollments (according to offer rules). This does not apply to device-level enrollments.
Q. What is the True Forward?
A. True Forward is an annual adjustment process to account for growth in the Cisco EA and includes payment for that growth. If a customer overconsumes, the True Forward will take effect on the next anniversary and will continue until the end of the Cisco EA term.
Q. What happens if there is a True Forward event in the final year of a Cisco EA term?
A. The customer will not be charged for the overages in the final year of the term.
Q. Can the customer scale down the quantity of products and services after entering the Cisco EA?
A. No, a customer cannot scale down the quantity of products and services after entering the Cisco EA.
Q. What is the EA Workspace?
A. The EA Workspace is a simple, enterprise-wide software management and provisioning tool. It serves as a common platform for the Cisco EA. The EA Workspace enables customers to:
● Manage and provision licenses.
● Generate software licenses without using Product Authorization Keys (PAKs).
● Use their Smart Account to manage user access to EA licenses.
Training information can be found here:
https://community.cisco.com/t5/licensing-enterprise-agreements/cisco-software-ea-workspace/ta-p/3630533.
Q. How do customers get access to the EA Workspace?
A. The customer must first create a Smart Account. The Smart Account is a customer- or partner-managed centralized account that provides full visibility into and access control of Cisco smart software licenses. After the Smart Account is created, go to the “License” quadrant on software.cisco.com and select Enterprise Agreements. Log in using your Cisco credentials and select the Smart Account associated with your Enterprise Agreement. You will then have access to view and manage your EA enrollments.
For more information on Smart Accounts, please visit
cisco.com/c/en/us/products/software/smart-accounts.html.
Q. Where can I find more Cisco EA content?
A. Please refer to
www.cisco.com/go/ea.
Q. What is the minimum purchase requirement for the Cisco EA?
A. Cisco DNA, Data Center and Security Choice are 100K TCV per enrollment. Collaboration requires 250 knowledge workers. However, there are variances by enrollment. Since the Services enrollment cannot be purchased on its own, the services enrollment requires 100% install base coverage of the purchased suite. Contact your account manager for more detail.
Q. How does the customer order hardware during the Cisco EA term? Won’t they be charged again for the Cisco software?
A. Associating a customer’s Smart Account with the order in Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) will cause it to recognize that the hardware order is covered by an EA and will automatically discount the software cost by 100%. The software is built to order and will be preinstalled on the hardware before shipment.
Q. How does a customer get support for non-hardware-related failures?
A. They should call Customer Interaction Network (CIN) and get access via their master contract number, which will list all products from Cisco product families covered under their Cisco EA contract. Although Software Support Service (SWSS) and software in general are not serialized, as long as the product family is listed on their master contract, the customer will be entitled. When a customer buys Cisco EA, we entitle all product families in the enrollment that the customer purchases.
Collaboration enrollment information
Q. How do I get more information about the various enrollments offered in a collaboration architecture?
A. Please reference the Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan At-a-Glance:
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/solutions/collateral/collaboration/cloud-collaboration/at-aglance-c45-738046.pdf.
Q. Is the Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan offered as a Cisco EA?
A. Yes, customers can purchase a Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan enrollment under the Cisco EA. Customers can enjoy many of the multi-enrollment advantages that Cisco EA provides.
Q. What are the collaboration enrollment details?
A. Collaboration enrollments include subscription and perpetual offers. Subscription enrollment includes Calling and Meetings for the Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan.
The Flex Plan helps provide customers access to on-premises, hosted, and cloud solutions all in a single subscription.
Perpetual enrollments include Multiparty Suite and Customer Collaboration Suite. The Cisco Unified Communications Suite will be end-of-sale in January 2021.
Q. What is a knowledge worker, and what is a peak concurrent agent count?
A. Knowledge workers are your employees and contractors who use devices as a normal part of their job duties that are performed on your behalf.
This definition is embedded in the Cisco EA End User Information Form (EUIF) that the end user signs.
The peak concurrent agent count is the maximum number of agents concurrently online at any given point within the past 12 months.
Cisco DNA enrollment information
Q. What is offered as part of Cisco DNA enrollment?
A.
Q. How do I get more information about the various enrollments offered in the Cisco DNA EA?
A. Please reference the following Enrollment Description Guide:
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/software/one-software/solution-overview-c22-738976.pdf.
Q. What are the new offers for a Cisco DNA enrollment in an EA?
A. Highlights of the new offers for a Cisco DNA enrollment in an EA include:
● Buy More Get More (multi-suite discounts)
● One-year ramp promotion for all EAs with a Cisco DNA enrollment
● Two-year ramp promotion for Cisco DNA enrollment in Switching (1000+ Switch customers only)
● Free Cisco DNA Center Appliance for a Cisco DNA enrollment in Wireless and/or Switching suites with $100K net TCV (total contract value)
● Free Cisco ISR 1100-4G and/or Cisco ISR 1100- 6G devices for a Cisco DNA Enrollment in SD-WAN and Routing suite with a $500,000 net TCV
● Solution Starter entitlement for onboarding and implementation*
*
Contact your Cisco Partner for more information
To learn more, please visit:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/promotions-free-trials/cisco-dna-enrollment-enterprise-agreement-promotions.html.
Q. What happens to Cisco ONE
™ EA customers? How do they get access to new innovation?
A. Customers who purchased an Enterprise Agreement with the Cisco ONE Foundation or Advanced enrollment have been given access to Cisco DNA through the EA Workspace. Cisco ONE Foundation for Switching, Wireless, and WAN and Cisco ONE Advanced for WAN have received Cisco DNA Essentials entitlements. Cisco ONE Advanced for Switching and Wireless have received Cisco DNA Advantage entitlements. In addition, customers will have access to the software prerequisites needed to take full advantage of all Cisco DNA capabilities. Customers who wish to take advantage of additional Cisco DNA capabilities including Cisco DNA Premier can access them at any time and pay at the True Forward milestone.
Q. How does license portability work for Cisco ONE Software under Cisco EA?
A. The guidelines are the same as for a transactional purchase of Cisco ONE Software. If the customer wants to move an existing license to a new hardware chassis, they would need to send an email to c1-
portability-support@cisco.com with the request. This would not be counted as a new license deployment.
Q. Can customers continue to get Cisco ONE through Cisco EA?
A. Going forward, Cisco EA will only offer Cisco DNA for switching, wireless, SD-WAN and routing. Cisco ONE perpetual offer will not be available through Cisco EA.
Q. How do tiers affect license portability for Cisco ONE Software under the Cisco EA?
A. If the new device is in the same portability tier, there would be no cost to move the license. If the new device is in a higher portability tier, the customer would need to pay the difference in price at the next True Forward. The portability tier guidelines can be found here:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/software/onesoftware/tiering-guide-cisco-one.html?cachemode=refresh.
Data Center enrollment information
Q. What is offered as part of a Data Center enrollment?
A. Customers can choose a minimum of any one, or more, of the suites from the diagram below. Cisco Workload Optimization Manager and AppDynamics
® Enrollment Pilot are offered as add-ons and do not count toward the minimum. Enterprise-wide coverage is required for Cisco Data Center Networking, Cisco HyperFlex
™, and Cisco MDS.
Q. What is the minimum Total Contract Value (TCV) for the Data Center enrollment?
A. Cisco has reduced the entry point to $100,000 net TCV across the Data Center enrollment. Net is inclusive of discount only. We have reduced some of the suites entry to $50,000 or enterprise-wide, but the $100,000 minimum TCV still must be met. For example, as long as a customer meets the coverage requirements, they can sign up for a 5-year term on both Cisco Intersight
™ for $50,000 and Cisco Data Center Networking for $50,000, satisfying the $100,000 TCV. For suites without coverage requirements, the customer must meet each minimum. For example, they could sign up for a 5-year term for $50,000 in Intersight Advantage and $50,000 in Cisco Workload Optimization Manager to reach the $100,000 minimum.
Q. Why should a customer buy the data center products as a Cisco EA?
A. In addition to benefits including True Forward, single term, and single workspace, buying data center enrollments as a Cisco EA gives customers additional value through multisuite pricing.
Q. How is the multi-suite pricing applied?
A. Multi-suite pricing is applied to the list price before any additional discount and is applied at the time of enrollment commitment. Customers purchasing any two suites are entitled to an additional 5 percent, three suites to 10 percent, four suites to 15 percent, five suites to 18 percent, and six or more suites are entitled to a 20 percent discount. In the case of AppDynamics, this discount is only applied to new licenses purchased and does not count toward renewals.
Q. What happens to Cisco ONE EA customers? How do they get access to new innovation?
A. If the customer has an Enterprise Agreement with Cisco ONE Data Center Networking Foundation or Advanced, they are eligible to get Cisco Data Center Networking Advantage through the Cisco Enterprise Agreement (EA) Workspace.
Q. How does license portability work for Cisco ONE Software under Cisco EA?
A. The guidelines are the same as for a transactional purchase of Cisco ONE Software. If the customer wants to move an existing license to a new hardware chassis, they would need to send an email to
c1-portability-support@cisco.com with the request. This would not be counted as a new license deployment.
Q. What’s the process for quoting the AppDynamics Enrollment Pilot?
A. Please refer to Data Center Enrollment Ordering Guide:
https://salesconnect.cisco.com/open.html?c=705b5994-03dc-44b8-85bf-e5bf576b5699.
Q. How does compensation work for AppDynamics Enrollment Pilot?
A. The AppDynamics Enrollment pilot compensates the Cisco software seller and AM based on new license Total Committed Value (TCV). In the case where discounts are applied to the renewal spend, new license revenue will first go towards any discounted renewal.
Q. Can customers continue to get Cisco ONE Data Center Networking Foundation or Advanced through Cisco EA?
A. Going forward, Cisco EA will only offer Cisco Data Center suites as described above.
Security Choice enrollment information
Q. What is offered as part of the Cisco Security Choice enrollment?
A.
For a Cisco Security Choice enrollment, customers can pick any two product suites or one qualifying security suite with another Cisco EA enrollment.
Q. What is the minimum Total Contract Value (TCV) for a Cisco Security Choice enrollment? Are there any license minimums?
A. The total contract value should exceed $100,000 (net product only), with a minimum of 100 security content users. You can take out agreements for either three or five years.
Q. What discounts are available with a Cisco Security Choice enrollment?
A. Cisco Security Choice enrollment discounts vary depending on how many suites are in your agreement. Here is a breakdown:
2 suites = 5 percent discount
3 suites = 10 percent discount
4 suites = 15 percent discount
5 suites = 18 percent discount
6 or more suites = 20 percent discount
Q. How do I get more information about the various security enrollments offered in a Cisco EA?
A. Enrollment description guide:
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/software/security-enterprise-licenseagreement/security-choice-ea-aag.pdf.
Q. How does a Cisco EA differ from the Cisco security Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) 1.0 offer?
A. Both options offer a single agreement with co-termination and investment protection. ELA 1.0 is an ‘all in’ option, meaning for a single price, customers receive access to the full portfolio of Cisco security products for the entire organization. This option is best for larger or security-conscious organizations.
With Security Choice, customers have the flexibility to select the security offers they need to address their business needs today while still benefiting from EA discounts (starting from 5% for two products).
Services Enrollment Information
Q. What is included in the services enrollment?
A. Services Enrollment provides you an option to add premium service offerings to cover your existing hardware and software install base. Current service offerings include Cisco’s Solution Support, Enterprise Agreement Management Support with quarterly syncups and onboarding support with Customer Success Specialists.
Q. Is the services enrollment stand alone or an add on?
A. A purchase of a software EA enrollment is required in order to add on the Services enrollment.
Q. Which enrollments is the services enrollment eligible to be added on?
A. Services Enrollment is currently available for 3 suites in Cisco DNA Enrollment and DC Networking suite in Data Center Enrollment.
Q. Is Services for hardware and software?
A. Services Enrollment provides you an option to add premium service offerings to cover your existing hardware and software install base.
Q. What is the term duration for the Services enrollment?
A. Initial term requirement for services enrollment are same as those required by corresponding products. If you have previously purchased a SW EA, services enrollment will co-term with your existing EA.
Q. How does True Forward work for Services enrollment?
A. Your baseline install base is captured at the initial EA purchase. Any subsequent changes to your install base will be captured and counted towards your consumption.
Q. As I purchase new hardware under my EA, how does support get included in Services EA?
A. As you purchase new hardware, the corresponding services support will automatically be included.
Q. Where do I go for more Services enrollment information?
A. You can learn more at… @robin services enrollment website and/or services FAQ.
Partner-related Cisco EA questions
General information
Q. How do I know if my partner is eligible to sell the Cisco EA?
A. You can find eligible Cisco EA partners with the
Partner Locator tool. Click Advanced Search Criteria > Authorizations. Check the box of the EA enrollments you require.
Q. What requirements are there for partners to be able to sell the AppDynamics Enrollment Pilot?
A. Partners must be registered as an AppDynamics partner and can do so here:
https://www.appdynamics.com/partners/solution-providers/#sign-up
Q. Can a third-party importer be used in the Cisco EA deals?
A. Yes, but the third-party importer must meet the requirements to sell the Cisco EA, including having the buying model’s commerce certification.
Q. Do partners have access to the Cisco EA Workspace?
A. Yes, partners will have visibility into their customer’s entitlement and consumption in the EA Workspace.
Q. Where can partners go to get additional support?
A. For additional support, partners should reach out to
ela-partners@cisco.com.