Fortigate Licensing

[thesirnewton]

What happens to the existing FortiGate licenses if I renew them a few months before they actually expire? 

[Iescudero]

HI there!

There's a penalty for that. If existing license expires and you decide apply a new one this license is only valid for six months from the time you applied it.

Hope it helps!

[Kenundrum]

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I believe the way it works is that the new license starts at the end of your existing license (as long as they are the same entitlement). So there should be no penalty for renewing early. There is a penalty for lapsed coverage, but it is more than fair.

The lapsed coverage penalty is that your new license is retroactive from the activation date until the date or your last expiration or 6 months, whichever is less. So for example (with simplified dates)- if you let your coverage expire December 31 of 2015 and buy a  1 year renewal in May 2016, your coverage is back-dated to January 1 and therefore your new expiration will be December 31 2016. Effectively you have had no lapse in coverage and your new buy is lasting you 7 months after you activate.

If you choose not to buy/activate replacement until January of 2017, your new coverage is back-dated to July 2016 (6 months) and your new expiration would be in June 2017. Effectively 6 months of coverage going forward.

This pretty much dissuades people from not paying for hardware warranty and then only buying coverage after something breaks- and somewhat chastises those who do. Because the system is aware of the start/end dates, I find it highly unlikely that activating early would eat into an existing entitlement. The only situation where that may be the case would be something like switching from 8/5 to 24/7 or adding certain UTM features. For those, I would either contact support or have your reseller smooth it out with Fortinet and make sure the dates align with what you're looking for. My reseller has been able to get co-terminus coverages for renewals on devices bought at different times, so anything is possible.

[Iescudero]

Hi there!

In my experience it does. I used to work with a lot of fortigates around the world and some of them expired on purpose because we didn't use them. Several months later, because a new project, we started to buy some licenses and we find out that that every license is valid since renovation day, but only covers six months if the fortigate's older license has expired.

I can't find the exact document from fortinet which tells exact this, but i'm searching for it right now.

If I'm wrong i would admit it :)

[emnoc]

I think youre saying the samething as  what the other ken stated and your correct. One way to avoid this is to buy a 2 or  3year renewal and they way waive the penalty.

[Iescudero]

I'm not as good as I wanted in english (sorry for that) but i think we are saying two different arguments.

ken says that the penalty is retroactive. I'm saying that's not true.

Take this example:

 I bought a Fortigate  January frst of 2015 with 12 months license. Ends January first 2016. I decided not to use this so i didn't renew the subscription in 2016, but I need it use it in 2017, So i buy a new license and I decided applied January first of 2017.

At this point we got two different point of view.

For me this license would last only six months, until June first of 2017.

Ken says the new license would covered the entire year, but the 2016, so the new license would not work for 2017.

I can't find the doc...maybe don't exist at all, but I'm pretty sure of this because my partner said so.

I keep searching....

[emnoc]

Your correct in summary, you will be penalize 6months , so using that example your will only get  6months in   usage in 2017.

If you buy a 2/3year they will waive it.

And your english is good btw, I understood exactly what you where trying to relay.

Ken

[thesirnewton]

@kenundrum, 

 "I believe the way it works is that the new license starts at the end of your existing license (as long as they are the same entitlement). So there should be no penalty for renewing early."

This is what I was looking for.  Thanks Ken.