Licensing for Cold-Standby Unit

[Aleksee]

Hey Guys,

In case I have an active FortiGate unit and am planning to acquire a similar unit in cold-standby mode, what do you recommend in terms of Licensing? Should I acquire a UTM Bundle License for the first unit and simply a FortiCare contract for the cold-standby one?

In case the active unit with the UTM Bundle license is down, as I understood, I should be doing the following:

1- Open a ticket with Fortinet to transfer the license from the active one to the cold-standby one and get in touch with the TAC unit to proceed accordingly

2- Proceed with an RMA to exchange the defected one

3 - As a result, the cold-standby unit will become the primary unit and the exchanged unit will become the cold-standby unit.

Appreciate your feedback.

Thanks.

[Toshi_Esumi]

No, that's not going to work. Licenses need to match between all units in a cluster. HA wouldn't form without the condition. You can ask TAC with the current unit you have if you have any doubt.

[Toshi_Esumi]

Ok, you said cold-standby. Now definitely you need to ask TAC if they allow license transfer without writing off the serial number from the book for the "dead" device.

[hohosecure]

I would think that if you transfer the contract from the "broken" unit to the cold-standby then you will not be able to create an RMA request for the "broken" unit as it will no longer have a contract.

[ede_pfau]

Why bother to transfer the licence just for a few days? Are you using webfilter? If yes, you could disable it for a while. If not, you won't need the full UTM package for just some days. When the RMA replacement arrives, you exchange the serial numbers in Service&Support and recover the licenced status for the new hardware. But, YMMV.

[rwpatterson]

Get two 8x5 contracts and run them both simultaneously. If one goes south, you have the other unit up. That should provide ample coverage.

[ede_pfau]

@Bob, don't you get it...this is all about 'how to cheap out', not 'how to do it right'. Many roads lead to Rome...