Product FAQ (CISCO2951-SEC/K9)

Q. On the Cisco ISR G2 routers with the SEC-K9 license, what tunnel count and performance throughput are available?

A. The SEC-K9 permanent licenses apply to the Cisco 1900, 2900, and 3900 ISR G2 platforms; these licenses limit all encrypted tunnel counts to 225 tunnels maximum for IP Security (IPsec), Secure Sockets Layer VPN (SSL VPN), a secure time-division multiplexing (TDM) gateway, and secure Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE) and 1000 tunnels for Transport Layer Security (TLS) sessions. The SEC-K9 license limits encrypted throughput to less than or equal to 85-Mbps unidirectional traffic in or out of the ISR G2 router, with a bidirectional total of 170 Mbps. This requirement applies for the Cisco 1900, 2900, and 3900 ISR G2 platforms.

Q. What is the exact HSEC-k9 license?

A. The HSEC-K9 license removes the curtailment enforced by the U.S. government export restrictions on the encrypted tunnel count and encrypted throughput. HSEC-K9 is available only on the Cisco 2921, Cisco 2951, Cisco 3925, Cisco 3945, Cisco 3925E, and Cisco 3945E. With the HSEC-K9 license, the ISRG2 router can go over the curtailment limit of 225 tunnels maximum for IP Security (IPsec) and encrypted throughput of 85-Mbps unidirectional traffic in or out of the ISR G2 router, with a bidirectional total of 170 Mbps. The Cisco 1941, 2901, and 2911 already have maximum encryption capacities within export limits.

Q. What countries are classified license-free zones?

A. Countries belonging to the EU license-free zone include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cypress, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Q: We have installed a 60 day license for the security k9. The Cisco 2900 router we got. And we are trying to set up a client to site vpn on this and it still does not recognize the ipsec and isakmp commands. Is there a command I need to do to now enable ipsec and isakmp?

A: Make sure your Cisco 2900 took the license, issue 'show license' and verify. Show license shows that it is in there and active. I rebooted and it still throws an error whenever i issue crypto ipsec or crypto isakmp Here is your problem: from "show license" License State: Active, Not in Use, EULA accepted "not in use" is the key. Try using "license modify priority securityk9 high" or the config command "license boot module c2900 tech securityk9" to make this feature in use, rather than not in use.

Q: We know the ISR2 series included VPN hardware acceleration but there is a "HSEC" which included an "advanced" encryption card. We are just trying to get my head around it. Is the HSEC bundle really needed over the standard SEC bundle? Now we need to support a 50meg Internet connection with 4 Site-to-Site VPNs and use of the firewall, NAT and QOS on each router. We are looking at the Cisco2921-SEC/K9 bundle. Does this sound about right?

A: If your internet link is 50mb, then a 2921 (non-HSEC) can handle the encryption/decryption. The standard SEC license comes with a software-based rate limiter of 85 Mbps each way. If the protocol does not handle loss/retransmissions very well, throughput can easily plummet. Testing in a lab environment with two Cisco 2921s, I saw speeds drop to 25 Mbps. Also info on the HSEC license can be found here in regards to what it is and what t does for you. It allows for addition through for encrypted traffic NASA higher number of VPN tunnels. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps10536/qa_c67_606268.pdf