Helping employees, customers and partners in a time of need is one of Cisco’s core values. Right now, COVID-19 is forcing many people around the world to work remotely. This is putting a sudden strain on both IT and security teams who are being tasked with providing support for an unprecedented number of offsite workers and their devices.
Recently, Cisco Webex expanded its free offerings to allow employees to stay connected to their teams and continue their business operations. In response to customers asking us for guidance, today, Cisco is broadening this offer to include security for remote employees by providing extended free licenses and expanded usage counts at no extra charge for three of our key security technologies that are designed to protect remote workers anywhere, anytime and on any device.
- Cisco Umbrella protects users from malicious Internet destinations whether they are on or off the network. Because it is delivered from the cloud, Umbrella makes it easy to protect users everywhere in minutes. With this offer, existing customers can exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote workers, and new customers can access a free license. To have the initial 14-day period extended to 90 days, please contact the Cisco sales team.
- Duo Security enables organizations to verify users’ identities and establish device trust before granting access to applications. By employing a zero-trust model, it decreases the attack surface and reduces risk. With this offer, existing customers can exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote workers, and new customers can access a free license.
- Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client empowers employees to work from anywhere on company laptops or personal mobile devices. It also provides the visibility and control security teams need to identify who and which devices are accessing their infrastructure. Existing AnyConnect customers can exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote workers, and new customers can access a free license. To get started, existing and new customers should talk with a Cisco representative or partner to get the requested usage counts. For more information on implementation, please view the online documentation.
These offers will be available from now until July 1, 2020. Supporting our customers and partners remains a top priority, and we hope these proactive steps help companies manage the business impact and keep employees safe during this evolving situation.
To learn how Cisco can help you with business continuity planning during the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit: http://cisco.com/go/covid19
Well done Cisco for providing this solution offering for customers and partners, especially as the likelihood of many global employees will have to work remotely
Well done Cisco for providing this solution offering for customers and partners, especially as the likelihood of many global employees will have to work remotely
Great initiative – inquiries from our customers have already been coming in, especially regarding AnyConnect licenses. This will definitely help.
Messenger
That’s amazing. Well done!
It’s nice to see how Cisco is doing what they can to help in this difficult situation.
Very helpful, Thank you
For new customers that don’t have Cisco Duo yet, the free trial will be limited to 10 users only for 30 days? or will it be open usage till 1 July 2020?
The 10-user limit for the free trial has been removed. Customers will be able to use the trial for as many users as they need. Please contact Cisco sales for options related to open usage until July 1, 2020.
Cisco always has that Human Touch for better world, Especially in this difficult times.
A very positive step to support customers work securely whilst remote.
None of this is new.
1. Cisco Umbrella (ie OpenDNS) was always free before Cisco bought it. Anyone can utilize the free version still just by changing their DNS addresses.
2. DUO has always allowed for the the first 10 licenses of a new account to be free. I’ve been using this for years at home.
3. Cisco VPN gateways (ASA, FPA) haven’t enforced hard limits when exceeding licensed limits for a long time now. They’ll just flag the licensing as “out of compliance.”
@Anonymous, thanks for pointing out our free services. We did not include our current offers in this post. We have a consumer version of Umbrella (OpenDNS) that remains free. It offers an excellent level of protection for consumers, and we’re very proud of the protection it provides for home use. We continue to encourage consumers to leverage this free offer, and as you point out, it’s super easy to get started. What we’ve announced today relates to the enterprise version. It offers a much higher level of protection, which can normally be trialed for 14 days and as part of this offer, we have expanded it to 90 days. Duo is fantastic, and we do offer a free version of the basic edition with a 10-license limit. What we are offering here is the ability to trial the full solution without any user limit. This is in response to the demand we are seeing from companies that have more than ten people trying to work remotely. Finally, I would not recommend that people or companies use out of compliance software. We are offering them a way to scale up their deployment and remain in license compliance.
@Gee What do you mean “We are removing that restriction”? I have 25 licenses and 35 users. We only use 5 or so at a time. I have no way to test to see what will happen when a 26th user connects to the VPN. Is what the original poster said true? Does “Removing that restriction” mean the ASA will allow more connections?
Thanks
It depends on which type of license you have for AnyConnect. We have AnyConnect licenses based on concurrent connection, which is bound to an individual ASA, and a per user license that can be used across multiple ASA. With a concurrent connection license, ASA will not be able to establish the 26th connection. It will look to disconnect any idle connections first before rejecting the 26th connection. As part of the offer, we can provide a 90-day license with additional concurrent user count up to the max supported by your ASA. In the case of a per user license, ASA would not reject the 26th connection, but you would be out of license compliance. So, we are providing additional licenses to help you maintain the compliance status. Please reach out to a Cisco representative or partner, and they can assist with your specific needs.
Great answer. I really appreciate it. I’ve reached out to our Cisco rep.
Great Help from Cisco
Great idea and concept but need some meat on the bones.
DUO – This version is it time bombed to expire – maximum quantity of users?
Umbrella – Weve been offering this for sometime so this hasnt changed – Hows that extending for 3 months from the original PPoV
Webex – Assume this is webex meetings only not calling, obviously gain access to webex teams for collaboration and IM
Fantastic can play a good growing BCP plan for all companies in the future or allow the customer to put emergency measures in place to keep the business running in light of COVID-19
This offer is to help customers overcome the sudden increase in remote workers. In the case of Duo, we are offering a 30-day license of our product without any maximum user restrictions. Please contact Cisco sales for options related to open usage until July 1, 2020. As for Umbrella, we have in the past extended trial periods on a case by case basis, but with this offer all customers will be eligible to have their trials extended to 90 days. Additional details should be provided in the links. If we’re missing something, please reach out. This is a dynamic situation that we’re addressing in real time.
Magari orgia di coppie Treviso
Free means free, not a 14 day trial…
Thanks for the comment. While we are working to update our backend systems, the mechanism we are leveraging to provide the 90-day free license is via our existing trial program. Customers can contact their Cisco sales team to have the 14-day trial extended to 90 days, and this is open to all customers. Hope this helps.
Great Job Cisco. These are crucial services used by so many partners (including my team). One less thing organization will have to worry about at such a critical time. Thank you
Just wanna say that Cisco has been a huge help with the Covid-19 crisis. Sometimes it takes a while to get new license orders acquired through the normal channels and having this option for a temporary basis is a huge help for some orgs.
first of all, thank you for the offer.
now, for the existing customers, up to which level can we exceed? is it limitless till July?
Please contact sales, and they can assist you with your specific needs.
Ok
As masters of the joined up strategy, it would be good to see ONE document or response page on cisco.com which high-lights ALL current COVID-19 facilities available from the Cisco portfolio… i.e. AnyConnect, WebEx, Duo, etc.
Cisco is well known for their Thought leadership. In the case of any Pandemic, Step two must be a committed action plan,…
Here is one page – http://cisco.com/go/COVID19 – for aggregated information supporting businesses and Cisco’s offers related to COVID-19.
Thanks Tony. Great summary.
This is a powerful act to assist in the effort for “Social Distancing” to limit the pandemic.
Bien hecho Cisco, gracias por ayudar!!
That is awesome, this is what the world needs right now, a little goes a long way! Thanks Cisco.
Thank you Cisco, contacting my rep.
Wow! 🙂 Just read about this. Makes me very proud to work for Cisco!
Hi Cisco team,
Thanks for helping in this way – a couple questions:
Is there a way you can allow us to exceed ASA Anyconnect platform limits? We have an ASA5516 that shows very low CPU and memory load and we’re sure it can handle more than 300 concurrent Anyconnect sessions. Any way TAC can give us a way to exceed the limit temporarily?
Also, would Cisco be willing to grant a temporary ASAv license with Anyconnect licensing as part of this response?
Thanks,
Hi David, the max is 300 simultaneous on the ASA 5516, and there is no way to increase that. This is an older device, and the throughput and max user capacity of a device cannot be exceeded. We are authorizing use to its max with no limit on authorized users for 13 weeks. You can request this license at cisco.com/go/license. During the offer period, all devices will be unlocked to their maximum simultaneous capacity with no limit on authorized user count for 90 days under Apex functions (superset of both of these licenses).
Finally, we have special pricing on the a select set of the ASAv modules. Please reach out to your Cisco sales representative for further assistance.
Merci CISCO. Bravo.
Might have been nice to actually let the partners know what to say to their customers, I’m taking to Partner Support now and they are confused?
Thank you for your comment, Pete. We are staying in close contact with our partners to make sure they have the latest information, but it remains a fluid situation. If you still have questions after checking in with your partner contact, please reach out here: https://engage2demand.cisco.com/lp=11069?ecid=13896.
I am a partner! No information is making it to me, I spoke to partner central, they bounced me to TAC, I opened a TAC call yesterday, Theres been no response form TAC for 24 hours? Call Ref: 688662840
Ive got at least one panicking client that needs to send his staff home to remote work and he has 2 AnyConnect licences, yes he should have thought about that before now, but he didn’t because he’s a client!
You said “and new customers can access a free license” WHERE FROM!!!!
Pete (PeteNetLive) and Pulsant Consultant
Hi Pete, apologies for any miscommunication. Please reach out to pandemicsupport@cisco.com. This has been flagged, and someone will get back to you. Also, the Partner Community contains some helpful information: https://community.cisco.com/t5/security-documents/cisco-security-responds-to-increase-in-remote-workers/ta-p/4044508.
Thanks for the prompt follow ups;
I worked it out myself in the end, If I can help anyone else out, here is what I did;
https://www.petenetlive.com/KB/Article/0001661
Pete
Dr. Gee,
I am an end-user but can relate to Pete’s lament. When my ASA started blocking employees, I called your 1-800 help/sales/info lines on 2 occasions on 2 different days, inquiring how I could purchase more licenses. Both sales people told me that Cisco does not “sell” anything, and I should go find a partner. Only one pointed me at your partner locator website, and neither bothered to intimate that Cisco was in fact offering additional licenses gratis, if they even knew. While waiting [days] for the local partner, I took Pete’s approach, and figured out how to get the license myself.
I took the time to write this not to flame, but to provide candid [and also gratis] feedback on customer experience, in case you might [I hope] find value in it.
@paladin, thank for taking the time to share feedback. We regret that was your experience, and we are continuously working to improve the process for these free offers. If you have any other questions or require further assistance, please reach out to pandemicsupport@cisco.com.
Thanks for helping the humanity in this difficult time that is why “Cisco Is Cisco”.
not to mention the amazing, secure and simple Meraki MX solution !
What about those who have Cisco FTD?
Thanks for your comment. You can log into FMC/FDM, request an AnyConnect entitlement for Plus or Apex. You can also find more information here: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/anyconnect-secure-mobility-client/215331-anyconnect-implementation-and-performanc.html.
Good Job, We have been a Cisco shop for many years and we really appreciate this from you.,
Thank You., Sergio V. Mujica – City Of Harlingen MIS Dir.,
Very good initiative.
Awesome, thanks cisco for your support
Well Done Cisco
Wonder full.
will helpful for employee who do work from home or anywhere.
It’s appreciate your system but, if it’s possible, please adopt a guided simple system iniziating with: Name, Surname, fiscal number just to have a record remembering who is entering on the pages.
Thank you for your suggestion. We are continuously evaluating ways to improve the offerings.
You guys really delivered in crunch time. Nice to see a company help their clients instead of exploiting them during tough times. Makes me even happier that we are a Cisco only shop. Kudos !
Awesome News!
Great. Too bad we already purchased the additional DUO Security licenses we needed though.
We did too – But I’m sure we will use them after July 1.
Thank you Cisco. We’ve already helped some of our customers in Australia setup RA VPN using the free licenses.
Working from home until further notice.
We love to see great companies stepping up to help in this time of need. Thank you Cisco.
Hello, Can anyone tell me how to set up Umbrella promotion COVID-19 for remote workers? they will connect directly to internet without VPN.
Thanks
Thanks for your question, Diego. Umbrella’s DNS-layer security delivers breach protection and internet-wide visibility on and off your network. If you haven’t already, you can access a free Umbrella license here: https://signup.umbrella.com/?_ga=2.263060108.1618605728.1583165828-1792231225.1582053246. To start, you will want to point your DNS to Cisco Umbrella, and you can learn more about how to do that here: https://docs.umbrella.com/deployment-umbrella/docs/point-your-dns-to-cisco.
????
Cisco is the best company.
The company that I work for uses Cisco AnyConnect. Recently, due to the COVID-19, the demand for remote access has increased. Because of it, upper management has suspended the approving of new requests, due to bottlenecks. I’d like to know if there is a maximum number of people that the VPN can support or if there are some other limitations. I know very little about VPN, just a employee that wants to work from home.
Thanks for your question, Marvin. There are limits, and it is as much as the headend/firewall VPN aggregator can go up to.
I’m noticing a number of high profile orgs using Cisco. Plaudits for providing the world with connections during this time of extreme distancing.
Stay apart. Stay together. With Cisco.
How are you dealing with enterprise customers who already have the Webex Platform in place and are paying for it but have increased usage due to covid19 and that increased usage is in the 90 day prior to annual renewal tru up period? In short we renew in July and Cisco looks at the previous 90 days usages to get the next years annual costs. This usage is not normal and is inflated and will raise our annual cost for a year on artificial numbers.
There is a program in place that allows for a Temporary Surplus waiver . Please contact your Cisco Rep for more details
Can any one provide clarity on “Emergency COVID-19 AnyConnect” License Trial period ? , whether it is for 56 days (8 Week) or 90 days (13 Weeks) .
I have activated the license in my ASA by the help of Cisco sales team. however I can see the license period as 56 day in my firewall.
So can any one please confirm the exact trial time period for the license.
es excelente esta opccion solo q no se si estoy haciendo correctamente las cosas ya q tube dificultad en entrar seria tan amables de orientarme
Umbrella and Cisco AnyConnect are a core part of securing our at-home workforce. Making the transition to at-home work was made a lot easier for us. Being a healthcare organization it was critical that our support functions continued without issue to keep core patient care systems functioning and to provide the same level of support to our care providers who are on the frontline.
Thanks Cisco.