Q. What if I lose my Product Activation Key (PAK)?

A. The Product Activation Key (PAK) must be treated like money. In case you misplace your PAK key before using it, the only other way Cisco locate it is via the Cisco Sales Order #. In case you have used this PAK key in the past to register an ASA, the PAK can be found on the Cisco.com license portal for the user who completed the license registration. Cisco is able to look up this information based on a serial number utilized for a previous registration.

Q. I just made a purchase for Plus/Apex licenses 5 minutes back and want to start using it immediately.

A. The Cisco Plus/Apex model needs a PAK key to activate an ASA and enable support/Software access. Therefore, it is not possible to get the ASA license before the PAK key has been generated. However it is possible to obtain a one-month provisional ASA license. Licenses cannot be utilized the second you get the eDelivery notification. It can take up to one day for your license PAK key to be activated on the License portal.

Q. Why am I getting a Serial number cannot be blank error notification while registering a license?

A. You probably accidentally pasted in a trailing space at the end of your serial number. Also eliminate any extra spaces after your serial number and then resubmit your request. The other reason for this error is that you may have clicked the Add Device button which is there to add more than one Serial Number at the initial registration instance, but you did not add any further Serial Numbers. For this situation, you need to click the Delete Device button and submit it again without the blank spacing which is intended only for addition of an additional serial number.

Q. How can I access the Cisco AnyConnect v4.x Software Center on Cisco.com and get TAC support?

A. When you buy any term Plus or Apex license (or SWSS for Plus perpetual or VPN Only), a contract number will be produced for your purchase, this normally takes a few days from the time the license PAK is electronically delivered to you. You need to speak with your Cisco Authorized Reseller if you have not received this contract number. The contract number has to be linked to your Cisco.com ID in order to allow Software Center access and the capability to open TAC cases. We recommend that you associate your contract to their Cisco.com ID by sending an email to web-help-sr@cisco.com with the Contract # and their Cisco.com ID. It is imperative that your customer profile address data matches the address data on the contract before trying to associate a contract or sending any email. The contract number is not identical to your PAK key.

Q. In case of an RMA, what happens to my ASA License Key?

A. All ASA license keys get uncovered during an ongoing RMA, this is a regular stage of the RMA process at Cisco and is not particular to this license. As the PAK Key is for multi-use, you do not require an RMA case to start a transfer, you can simply just re-register your PAK key to your new ASA Serial Number.

Q. How does license expiration work? Does the initiation time begin counting down as soon as I install a license to my ASA device?

A. The countdown is based on the same manner that all Cisco term-based licenses work, there is not anything AnyConnect particular as part of this. The contract is set to become active one day after shipment (these are electronically delivered licenses also called eDelivery). So if an order ships on October 25 2014, the service initiation date will be October 26th.

To learn more, please speak to our licensing specialists today.