When their Smart Licensing System became mandatory to use Cisco’s Catalyst 3650, 3850, and 9000 series switches, the company claimed it would make make fore more flexible management of hardware licenses. But, according the iFixit report, it also provides the company more control.

Prior to Smart Licensing, these products were deployed and largely left alone. When sold, the hardware would go with its corresponding software license. But in the current system, companies buy a pool of licenses per account, which are divvied among their devices. Said devices communicate with Cisco for validation — a mandatory process.

iFixit cites IT maintenance professional Todd Bone of XS International in saying that Cisco can now theoretically limit the ability to use hardware, since licenses reside on Cisco’s servers and because the company is technically in charge of whether these devices work or not.

You don’t technically “own” used Cisco hardware anymore

Since these devices are tied to the original purchaser’s account, it has potential ramifications for buying and selling used hardware. “This will dramatically change the ability to buy used or refurbished Cisco hardware that run smart licensing because the original end user only owns the hardware, not its usage,” explains Bone. — excerpt from iFixit article.

This could also limit services from third-party companies

“It’s not clear if the owners of Cisco hardware will continue to have entitlements outside a SMARTnet contract,” the article quotes Bone. “Cisco may cut access to their entitlement servers for units they don’t support.” Coupled with a decline in the used market, that could lead to more Cisco e-waste in landfills.

iFixit’s source says he fears many Cisco customers do not recognize what they’re granting the company by upgrading to Smart Licensing.

Read Next: RFP Template for IT Hardware

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“At Dell Technologies, we believe providing people and communities with access to technology is a critical first step to sparking the kind of innovation that drives human progress.” says Jeremy Ford, Vice President of Giving and Social Innovation at Dell Technologies. “We’re thrilled to be working with Comcast as part of its Internet Essentials program to not only connect more low-income households to the Internet, but also to provide them with the technology they need to thrive in a digital world.”

Comcast has expanded its Internet Essentials to include all qualified low-incom households in its service area. This expansion estimates a total of nearly seven millions households that will now have access to low-cost internet service. This doubles the total number of previously eligible households. This follow an expansion from last year to include participation from an estimated one million low-income veterans.

“The research on the causes of the digital divide is very clear,” says David L. Cohen, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer of Comcast NBCUniversal. “One of those reasons is that many low-income households either do not own a laptop or cannot afford to buy one. As a result, this initiative with Dell Technologies will help us connect more households to the Internet at home so students can do their homework, parents can look for and apply for jobs, and veterans and seniors can keep in touch with friends and family who may be scattered around the world.”

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“Our server replaces rack and tower servers with a rugged, wall-mount server that’s built like a tank,” said Gordon Triplett, President, Aertight Systems.

“The server hardware that is currently being used to run some of our most critical infrastructure is not suited for the environment it’s in. Instead, we need secure, reliable server hardware with practical features which can be maintained and controlled locally. Rack and tower servers are often full of fans, mechanical hard drives, and require both conditioned areas and a lot of maintenance to avoid failure.

“Alternatively, Cloud Computing isn’t a great option for industrial and remote facilities because outside network connections can be a security risk. If the cloud server goes down, operators could potentially lose control over their own equipment.

“Aertight’s patent pending design combines security with modular, field replaceable components that provide a simple platform for engineers to host their applications and run virtual servers. The Aertight Server Platform is a total game-changer for facility server resources.”

Key features of AERTIGHT Server Platform:

• Security: Wall-mount, 16-gauge steel exterior, combo lock door, water resistant, with no exterior exposed USB or network ports, and 16x14x12 inches.
• Reliability: Fan-less, industrial grade parts, nearly silent, no moving parts, low power consumption (under 100 Watts), and up to 6 removable SSD hard drives.
• Practicality: Embedded Touchscreen, Toolless Modular Interior Parts (Motherboard/CPU, Hard Drives, Power Supply, and Monitor are all swappable), AC or DC Power, and a TPM 2.0 Hardware Encryption Module.
• Failover Redundancy: Two units can be paired together for redundancy of virtual machines with ONLY two crossover ethernet cables between them. No SANs, switches, or other network gear are required between the two servers.

Read Next: 21 Extinct and Outdated Office Technology and What Replaced Them

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Mentor reports that the Calibre physical verification suite deployments were able to scale out to over 4,000 CPUs, “an industry record for an EDA tool scaling a single job on Azure,” the company says.

Mentor and Azure plan to conduct additional experiments to demonstrate further software scalability and establish recommended chip design sizes to help mutual customers achieve target runtimes in cloud deployments.

Related: The Nearly-Mythical Ice Lake Chip: What Is This New Intel Processor and Why Did It Take So Long?

“Mentor is pleased to have partnered with Microsoft Azure to define a new benchmark with Calibre for scaling for Semiconductor Design Workloads,” said Michael Buehler-Garcia, vice president of product management, Calibre Design Solutions for Mentor.

“As IC companies increasingly look to leverage cloud capacity for faster turnaround times on advanced process node designs, they can be confident that their designs will optimally scale in Microsoft Azure’s robust, secure cloud environment.”

A ‘New Benchmark’ in Software Scalability

“Calibre has set a new benchmark for EDA tool performance, scalability and efficient memory use – all metrics of increasingly critical importance as new semiconductor process nodes introduce unparalleled complexity and encourage ever-larger CPU runs,” said Mujtaba Hamid, head of Product Management, Silicon, Electronics and Gaming, Azure Engineering, Microsoft Corp.

“Calibre supports the rapidly evolving requirements of our semiconductor customers, while demonstrating the outstanding security and performance that Microsoft Azure cloud offers to the demanding EDA market.”

IC designers can use Calibre in any design flow, and while running on either traditional in-house compute configurations or in public cloud environments such as Microsoft Azure, the company says.

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