Cisco used market and software options

[cturtle]

Hi,

I am somewhat oblivious to Cisco's licensing framework, never had to work with high end networking equipment at all, but for a project we're working on I need to do some 10/100Gbe networking trials so, off to ebay we went and found what would appear to be a great deal, specifically a Nexus N9K-C93108TC-EX on sale.

Now, it does say no OS, no software, which led me to try and download NX OS standalone but was greeted with a not really unexpected "you need a service contract to download" message.

All I need from the switch is, well, that it switches, no particular features other than, maybe, VLans if we are to keep are reuse the thing after this project is done.

Is this something I should simply avoid doing, buying used Cisco hardware? There's definitely no need for partners and support contracts for the use case, though obviously a one time payment for access to the software is fair enough.

Any insight on this particular item we're looking at and the more holistic approach for "Cisco in the homelab" sort of thing would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[bigevilbeard]

Hey @cturtle this does sounds like a pickle when you buy the item and it has no software and you have no way to get one.

As you noted you will need to have a valid CCO account and login to have the ability to download them. There have been suggestions that Cisco should offer some program to make it possible for students to access software but so far Cisco does not offer this. But from what i read some images can be downloaded using CCO account, you might have to try a few older images and see if that works

HTH

[cturtle]

Hi @bigevilbeard, thank you for chipping in so quickly!

That was a good idea, trying to download an earlier version, but alas even the earliest as shown in the device's support page requires the contract. I wonder if the switch will still switch without an OS, as there's obviously a lower level firmware handling the device proper...

But from what I can gather, if there's an OS, regardless of version, I will be able to use this device, right? My requirements, as mentioned, are more than basic, borderline wasting this level of switch on them, and this particular series has an honor based licensing, so no real danger of not having all ports licensed and such. There are many options on the used market, just the one without software is the cheapest I found so far.

Guess one thing I can do is request a quote on a service contract for this type of device, but something tells me I will not like that reply.

[bigevilbeard]

Hey @cturtle if there is no image and you are connected via the console, the switch/supervisor boots into loader mode. You can check if there is any images are present in bootflash

loader> dir

Until you have an image in there say nxos.7.0.3.I7.3.bin it will always be in loader

If there is an image

loader> boot nxos.7.0.3.I7.3.bin

Boot using one the two images in bootflash, which brings you to the NX-OS startup configuration.

[cturtle]

Well, I don't have the switch to test, this thread serves as a helper for me to decide if it is worth getting one of these, since the pricepoint is awesome for the apparent feature set, but that's moot if I find myself with the hardware and no way to use it, obviously.

Still, the seller on this particular one (I have found others that simply say tested and working, assume these would just work) did provide a screenshot of the console on boot, which I'm attaching.

At any rate, I think the basic premise of my question has been answered... no OS, no deal as the OS is not freely (or cheaply) available. Really appreciate your time and effort!

[bigevilbeard · Accepted solution]

Might be worth asking if they have an image they can load on for you, even the base image would work for your case you mentioned. In my experience with buying hardware from eBay for labbing and study, you can buy some real poop. I had routers not power on, switches with burnt out ports, corrupt flash, one switch i powered it on and it tripped my entire home fuse box and breaker.

It seems odd not sell it with an image loaded imo.

[Ramblin Tech]

A dirty secret of the secondary (ie, used) market for Cisco gear, is that the seller of the gear never "owned" the software that ran on the hardware they sold. That is, Cisco does not sell its software to its customers, instead it sells a non-transferable Right-To-Use (RTU) license with either a perpetual or limited-term duration to the original purchaser (Cisco is not alone in this practice; it is quite common in the industry). Since Cisco also has a copyright on its software, the original purchaser has no right to distribute a copy of the software should they sell their hardware on the secondary market (perfectly legal to sell the hardware). This legal predicament is rarely, if ever, disclosed by the sellers of used gear (in fairness, they might not even know this if they did not actually read the EULA).

Where does that leave a purchaser of used gear? If returning the gear to the seller is not an option, then to legally run the Cisco software, the purchaser would have to contact Cisco or an authorized Cisco reseller to purchase an RTU license and possibly an ongoing SAI or Services subscription (depending on the product and your support requirement). In earlier times, there was no enforcement of this software licensing requirement, but that has now changed with many products now requiring license keys/PAKS/servers/etc to enable full functionality of the software.

[cturtle]

Hey @Ramblin Tech.

The fact Cisco lets you use, rather than sells you their software is not shocking at all, and is even fair game IF the hardware does not need the software to operate, albeit in a limited way. This reasoning is logical, common sense even, but not legally enforced so, yeah, not being the target audience for Cisco's hardware, software or services means they actually don't need to bother with this.

As for the sellers, I had one run laps around the subject of "can I use this" trying very, very hard to make that question "is it working" which led me to educate myself a little better on what I was bidding on, and it was a Fabric Extender, that no matter how well it was working, I would not be able to use it standalone... now I know.

Which should lead me to simply steer away from Cisco hardware on this project, but that price point vs features ratio, it really makes it hard to not just cross fingers and take the leap

But, time is money and were this for my own personal use I would definitely be more inclined to pursue it further. For this project we have timelines and budgets so, well, I thank you all for the (incredibly quick) help, but I'm not taking the chance I'll end up with a heavy, expensive and not properly dimensioned door stop.

[bigevilbeard]

@cturtle not sure of the reason for your project if this is just scoping exercise but you can use CML (Cisco Modeling Labs) which includes the NX9K - there is a sandbox on this page https://developer.cisco.com/modeling-labs/ which you can use for free.

HTH