Upgrading MX65s to MX68s on Co-Term licensing – how to avoid paying for "phantom" MX65 licenses?
Hey everyone,
We are currently in the process of replacing 12 end-of-support MX65/W devices with 12 new MX68s. Along with the MX68 hardware, we purchased 3-year MX68 licenses.
Our org uses the Co-Termination (Co-Term) licensing model. When we added the new 3-year MX68 licenses to the dashboard, our org-wide co-term expiration date pushed out by about 6 months.
Here is the dilemma: Once we decommission and unplug the 12 old MX65s, our active device count drops, but our License Limit for the MX65 tier remains unchanged in the co-term pool. Because co-term calculates burn rate based on total entitlements rather than active hardware, those 12 unused MX65 seats will sit in our pool as "phantom" licenses, artificially inflating our daily burn rate until the whole org expires.
Essentially, we’re burning pool value on legacy hardware sitting in e-waste.
Questions I'm hoping someone can provide some guidance on:
- Is there any way through Cisco Meraki Support to surrender, convert, or remove these legacy MX65 license entitlements from a co-term pool so they stop burning daily value?
- Has anyone successfully requested a custom co-term date recalculation during a hardware refresh like this?
Appreciate any advice or experiences from anyone who has navigated this recently!