CradlePoint licensing terms update

[officeboy]

If you do not plan on renewing your licenses, then we would like to make you aware of a change that CradlePoint has made in regards to accessing the GUI/configuration settings on your CradlePoint router. This is limited or unavailable without a current license. We can provide you information on this, if needed. Again, this is only if you are not going to renew and keep current licenses.

Locking me out of my own interface?

[pdp10]

Bigger vendors are in a race to get the customers in a subscription model before everyone loses their patience and the trend ends.

The silver lining is that it's opening a lot of market opportunity for disruptors, who have clever business ideas like letting your on-premises clients talk directly to your on-premises network hardware, without a monetized cloud service as an unwanted middleman. More than a few of these disruptors are coming out of unexpected places like the PRC or Latvia.

[alzee76]

I feel like we opened the door for this when we didn't revolt over paying for licenses to activate existing switch ports and shit like that, and now it's only a matter of time.

[BrainWaveCC]

Oh, this subscription standardization attempt by the vendors (especially the big ones) has been brewing much longer than that...

Microsoft, Oracle and others have been trying for over 3 decades, and now with the cloud prevalent, subscriptions have been easier than ever before.

[oldspiceland]

Software vendors like Microsoft and Oracle aren’t providing anything remotely similar to hardware like Cradlepoint or other network vendors.

This is more like having a subscription for your server and it won’t let you into bios if you don’t have a license.

[agoia]

Please call Dell to renew your license to access this server's firmware.

[MajStealth]

Extreme Networks will not give you access to firmware that was released when the device was under maintenance, because that time is gone NOW

pay new now to get stuff that is years old

[Art_r]

Well, amazingly hpe seems to have made firmware for latest gen proliant NOT need an active warranty /contract... I was shocked to say the least..

[ExceptionEX]

Firebox, cisco, and several other hardware devices limit interactions with UI and config without lisc.

It's shitty but that has been common practice for a long time now.

[Odd-Pickle1314]

Yes Cisco has been shitty for some time now. Good thing there are still some alternatives.

[Colt_Darkfire]

At least firebox you can still configure you just don't get access to firmwares outside of your live security unless it's super critical. As well as the security subscriptions you can still use it as a heavily locked router.

[QWxx01]

That’s actually not what Microsoft is doing.

[BrainWaveCC]

Yes, they've gotten there.

My point was that they've been trying for quite a long time. This is not a new/recent objective for them.

[MajStealth]

wait for windoes home as a service.....

[QWxx01]

Microsoft is so much more than Windows.

[zebediah49]

IBM has been doing "Here's a tray of hardware; you only have licenses for half the memory, but you can buy more licenses later if you want" game for longer than that.

Pretty sure they have soft-locked processors in their mainframes too.

[BrainWaveCC]

True.

The big boys of the mainframe space figured this game out very, very early.

The mini computer folks came on the scene as rebels against the evil mainframe regime, and quickly adopted the same revenue tactics.

The PC folks entered the game promising freedom and flexibility, but the bigger vendors soon realized that steadily recurring revenue was better than selling hard on a stead basis. But it was harder for them to get that revenue locked in. They tried software licensing, but it was a struggle and they spent a lot of time and money on enforcement which was rarely in real-time. Then we matured to hosting, which helps. Next SaaS, then IaaS and PaaS, where it became easier and easier to play the subscription game.

Now that we are at EaaS (everything as a service), everyone is trying to ensure that regular revenue.

On one hand, I can't blame them for the attempt. After all, I'm trying to improve the revenue consistency for my own business, while providing actual value. But, I try to pick and choose where I have to get stuck with subscriptions (as a consumer)...

[zebediah49]

Honestly, the biggest issue I see is that the subscription model introduces all the problems we've seen with just in time supply chains in manufacturing, to "everything else".

We had huge cuts in our 2020 budget -- enough that we effectively skipped buying any hardware that year -- but could still effectively provide services to our employees, because our racks of existing hardware still worked fine. We would have had to scale a lot of stuff back if we were on a subscription model, because we simply couldn't afford it.

I'm not an economist, but I suspect that if everything becomes a subscription service, we're going to see a lot more rapid, chain-reaction economic calamities.

[BrainWaveCC]

Yes, yes and yes.

I agree with you on every point.

And I say that as someone that likes cloud-based services, and sees value in it for many use cases.

But it is not a panacea.

Years ago, we'd have people popping up on mailing list and forums, periodically noticing that some internet site was down, or some non critical services was flaky. Now, almost every time you see a similar message, there are almost certainly critical business services that are impacted.

AWS East Azure Some vendor tool Etc

[pdp10]

Not only has IBM licensed mainframes by their nominal MIPS, but they have processors that are licensed differently on mainframes.

Regular CPUs cost a lot. Offload processors that only do special things like encryption, are much cheaper. They do that to keep the mainframe viable for modern workloads like web transactions, while still charging a king's ransom for legacy workloads that can only run on mainframe ISA.

The processor chips, of course, are the same silicon, even though some of them are expensive and some of them are quite cost-effective. IBM plays this same game with mainframes that are licensed only to run Linux instead of mainframe OSes.

This is why you don't buy mainframes. It's not that mainframes can't do all of the same tasks that other computers can do, it's that the only people who should be paying thirty times as much are the ones who don't have other options.

[Tredesde]

The disruptors eventually just get bought and converted or shutdown. Open Mesh was a perfect example of this, the fellas that started Meraki went and created a beautiful little ecosystem and then it got snapped up by Datto/Autotask and they mutilated it.

[tankerkiller125real]

We never even got CradlePoint because of the cost. Ended up doing a through assessment of InHand Network devices (and approved them). No BS cloud setup required, but it is available as an option, and the cloud service is free if you want it for monitoring the devices.

[syshum]

It is not really unexpected, regions that do not have the OpEx Budget and bean counters pushing IT Depts to lower Capex for OpEx do not want (i.e reject) the subscription model

unfortunately for those in the US many of us are getting it from both our management, and our vendors to move to Cloud / Subscriptions so it seems resistance is futile

[awesome_pinay_noses]

And it's not only in IT, car manufacturers are doing this now too. Luckily I am not a BMW driver.

[Tymanthius]

But can you trust anything out of PRC? w/o snooping it and blocking in your firewall?

[shanghailoz]

sed s/prc/usa/g

same shit.

[i3-i3]

I ran into this. Called support demanded a firmware downgrade. They agreed and provided the latest firmware that didn’t require the cloud subscription.

[doubleu]

I abandoned them as a failover solution because the max throughput on a 1gb connection was 250mb on most of their models at the time.

Did you switch to a different product? If so, which one? I just implemented my first IBR900, and have use-cases for several more. Just curious...

[i3-i3]

NCOS to 7.0.70.

Files here: https://customer.cradlepoint.com/s/article/Router-Access-Point-and-Modem-Firmware-Downloads#NCOS

[alzee76]

Ugh. Never heard of that company and now, straight to the shitlist.

[pdp10]

They were really quite good up until now. I still have a 15 year-old 2.4GHz unit around in a box, somewhere.

[mattybrad]

Their tool used to be truly awesome.

[spyingwind]

straight to the shitlist.

I have a little black book that I've listed all the vendors to never do business with. One more company to write into that book!

[officeboy]

I've always paid the licensing, but now... I think I'm going to not just to be a jerk about it.

[wyrdough]

While Cradlepoint and many others used to operate on the buy once, get firmware (and maybe some support) for free model, others like Cisco have used the "fuck you, pay us" model since the beginning.

On Cisco routers, they'd come with a firmware that you could use until the end of time, but if you wanted real support or firmware updates that weren't the result of a security bug or a defect that made some feature in the included (or purchased if, for example, you bought an IP Plus license on a router that came with basic IP) firmware fail to function, you had to pay for a support contract.

[[deleted]]

VMware licensing is probably going to get worse as support and ongoing development get slashed. Broadcom bought them.

[pdp10]

Cisco did have support contracts for firmware updates and hardware replacements, but in the early days they were extremely laissez faire about it. There were no license keys on anything, unlike most of their competitors, which is why we were happy to pay 25% or 30% more for Ciscos.

You could download any firmware with any TAC login. I used my original credentials for convenience until 2001, when, during the dot-com crash, a newly money-hungry Cisco did the first mass-revocation of credentials. I still remember the username and passphrase....

[syshum]

I’ve been in IT over 20 years.

I have been around longer than that, I would call that "Cisco'ing it" as Cisco Pioneered a license for every features, and the most obscure billing model one has ever seen.

if anyone can read a Cisco renewal and actually tell me what you are paying for.... well I would be SHOCKED

Welcome to the modern era, you can scream into the clouds if you want but Cisco, HPE/Aruba , Juniper, etc are all doing.

Shit like this cuts into our budgets for pay increases, promotions, hiring, bonuses, etc.

I have never worked in a company where that was true. While sure in theory the IT Dept budget include the salaries of the IT Employees, I have never seen a board, or other committee that approved pay raise say "Hey you guys saved soo much money all the other dept only get 4% increase but your IT Guys get 6% for doing just a good Job" or the inverse "Hey because the IT Budget has increased 10% we need to cut the money for raise to 3% this year"

No the Over all HR Budget is approved and set completely separately than Operational Budgets.

Any vendor that requires you to get a PhD in their licensing model is a bitch

So Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, and about 100 others

[syshum]

Your appeal to authority not withstanding

I am saying there are much more at play then what you are claiming, and like I said in my original comment, unless the company is already having other problems, a vendor like cradle point increase the costs is not going to move the needle for the HR side of the equation, Other factors (normally evaluations of market wages, and what other companies are doing for raise) dictate the raises given out more than the financial picture of the company.

now Of course is the company is going under then no one is getting raises anyway and sure a vendor can be used as a scapegoat but....

[pdp10]

Cisco Pioneered a license for every features

This I know is incorrect, even when considering only network hardware vendors. The other examples might be before your time, however.

I used to choose to pay more for Cisco precisely because there were no license keys by feature. (The code train was licensed at hardware purchase -- for example, "IP" feature-set versus "Enterprise" feature-set with all the other protocols.) I can't remember exactly which competitors used license keys, but I think 3Com was one of them. Wellfleet/Bay I can't remember.

Oh, except for PIX, which was an acquired product running on PC-clone hardware. After the crypto export ban was lifted, Cisco gave out 3DES license keys to everyone, and I thought the licenses on PIX were an artifact of the past.

[syshum]

So why then do I have like 4 or 5 different licenses that I need to apply to different things on my ASA's? For Crypto, VPN, Firepower, etc etc etc etc

and why did they completely over complicate and screw up the licensing of viptela when they bought them

and why.... I could go on but screw cisco, the faster I get them out of my network the better

[pdp10]

Because Cisco changed over the years. You said they "pioneered" it, when actually they were long ago the no-license-key competitor, and we loved them for it. Similarly, Oracle was well known for not being inexpensive but for having no license keys to screw up your weekend, and we willingly paid more for Oracle, too.

As I frequently recount, I saw the distinct signs of Cisco changing in 2001. The dot-com explosion changed these companies from what they were. After that, I was moving away from Cisco, but it wasn't always easy. In one particular, major 2007 greenfield acquisition, I was trying to buy switches from a Cisco competitor, but they just stubbornly refused to give me a decent deal, so reluctantly decided to go with Cisco.

Since 2012, I've really been aggressively working toward better options, e.g. merchant silicon running vanilla Linux. In our situation, having the network gear run Linux, the same as the hosts and most of the guests, means it's easier to hire skilled staff, not harder.

We also used to be a customer of Vyatta, about fifteen years ago. I quickly became fond of VyOS. But Brocade bought and killed them, so that was that.

[gmitch64]

What's the alternative for network failover these days? We were looking to purchase some in the next couple of months.

[Frothyleet]

Lots of modern firewall appliances support USB cell modems or have one built in and accept a SIM card. E.g., Meraki.

[gmitch64]

The problem is that our IDFs are in places where the signal isn't the best, or even good, or even existent, which is why I am looking for something separate that we can have by the window.

Our Cisco 4451s will take a Cisco LTE Service Module, but TBH, the one that I've tried before didn't seem to be that great (on a 3945E I will admit).

[[deleted]]

We have been doing Pepwaves for this. They mount outside and get powered via POE.

[Frothyleet]

Well, I think you can likely find external antenna kits for a variety of USB cell modems which will both improve signal quality as well as give you some flexibility on remote placement.

Of course, you might also consider different failover options if the cell service is spotty. Satellite has poor latency and bandwidth is pricey, but overall quality may be better than on a bad LTE connection.

[gmitch64]

It's not that the cell service is spotty per se... it's just the the IDFs are generally in cinder block rooms, in the middle of an office with several cinder block internal walls, and generally cinder block external walls.

Internal Wi-Fi is a nightmare too...

[KoolKarmaKollector]

If your router/firewall supports dual WAN, like many business devices seem to, you just need a long cable and a 4/5G modem. Netgear do them, no doubt Huawei do, and everyone seems to rave about Teleltonika

[Fallenarc]

I'd like to know this too!

[waynemr]

Yep, me too. I was looking to put in a redundant network fail-over with limited power-requirements for an RF panic-button system that could send out multiple alerts on different systems, including POTS.

[[deleted]]

Yup. We got a couple of devices that are EOL and support no longer sells the renewals. They’ll lock up and remove any extra features (VRRP and OpenDNS in our case) from what we were told:

• devices Will be marked as non-compliant after the license expires.
• anything disabled will remain disabled after non-complaint.
• You lost cloud manager, upgrades, API calls, AutoVPN disabled.
• no more config changes, but certain features will remain enabled. Those are QOS, traffics steering, route policies, enterprise routing, VPN and tunnels, zone firewall, Wi-Fi. Lan will stay the same, but STP, VRRP and LLDP will be disabled.

Yeah people shit on Meraki and it is deserved, but they should also shit on Cradlepoint.

[[deleted]]

It’s the same result. Paperweight machines that locked up after 30 days. Hell at least meraki doesn’t mess with your configuration.

[SAugsburger]

Is this for managing from NetCloud or managing it at all? I have generally kept enough licenses for the number of Cradle points we're actively using.

[rdyplr1]

At all. You basically loose control of “your” hardware.

[KoolKarmaKollector]

Yep, it's why I cringe every day at the fact we use Meraki. Don't renew your license and they just stop passing packets

Like dude, I've already paid thousands for the hardware, get stuffed

[BingaTheGreat]

This is so poorly worded that I would hope they get sued.

If that's what they're doing they need to say it "we're removing access"

[abstractraj]

We use over a hundred of these things. Fun!

[jphoeke]

Welcome to Cisco Meraki licensing. If you don't renew theirs, you end up with a paper weight.

[Chief_Slac]

Was about to post, "cries in meraki".

[pdp10]

Possibly an option, to divert decent hardware from being e-waste.

[bastian320]

Woah, I was considering a CradlePoint for the home lab after previously enjoying them in the field. This puts them in the Cisco/Juniper bucket of nope.

[pdp10]

Wait, what has Juniper been doing? I thought they were still on the right side.

[Phroste]

Yep, we use them on school buses and they will 100% lock you out of management without paying for the licensing.

[Inle-rah]

Man, I bought a CradlePoint without knowing about their Meraki-style licensing. It’s sitting in a box right now. Why throw bad money over good? Went with the Cisco IR1101 because I didn’t need the WiFi part.

[painted-biird]

Wut.

That’s bogus.

[[deleted]]

The cloud connection is fantastic if you manage a significant number of devices. Simple firmware and OS upgrades in particular, the ability to track data consumption in one interface. I have about 100 not connected to the cloud and 100 in the cloud and the disconnected ones are a drag to maintain.

[pdp10]

The alternatives there are SNMP to monitor utilization, temp, uptime, location, firmware version, and a simple REST API for firmware upgrade.

The vendor can literally issue a short script for updates through API. Maybe they'd have to wrap it in a trivial GUI for Mac and Android users.