Cisco FTDv Licensing Model Valid Statements
Answer
Correct answer: D, E — Licenses can be used on both physical and virtual appliances and on any supported cloud platform.
Which two statements are valid regarding the licensing model used on Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual appliances? (Choose two.)
Community Votes
60% of anonymous learners picked answer DE. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.
Community Insight
The question tests the portability features of the Cisco FTDv licensing model, and the common trap is assuming virtual licenses are restricted only to virtual cloud platforms or cannot be used on physical appliances.
This page clarifies the valid statements regarding the Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual (FTDv) licensing model. It establishes that FTDv licenses are portable across both physical and virtual appliances as well as any supported cloud platform.
Choosing B and E because learners assume all FTDv licenses allow up to 16 vCPUs, ignoring that vCPU limits are typically tier-specific in the datasheet, or assuming virtual licenses cannot apply to physical appliances.
Community Discussion (8 comments)
MooseMullay
👍 5
All are incorrect apart from E. A) is incorrect - FTDv50 and 100 support more than 250 VPN peers B) is incorrect - Only FTDv100 supports 16 vCPU cores C) Shown on datasheet that only 50GB is required - could this be a typo in the answers above? D) Is incorrect - see above link for separate license types for physical E) Correct See FTDv licensing shown here: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/firepower/70/fdm/fptd-fdm-config-guide-700/fptd-fdm-license.html See data sheet here: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/firepower-ngfw-virtual/threat-defense-virtual-ngfwv-ds.html
MB2222
👍 3
Related to: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/firepower-ngfw-virtual/threat-defense-virtual-ngfwv-ds.html ... the only correct answers might be (D and E). Please refer to the article within section: License portability across clouds: Deploy appliances everywhere, from your data center to your branch office, with the portability of one license to support virtual and physical solutions across public or private clouds (VMware, KVM, OpenStack, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), government clouds) and hyperconverged infrastructure (Cisco HyperFlex, Nutanix AHV). Expand, contract, and relocate workloads over time spanning physical, virtual, and public cloud infrastructures with one license.
gwb
👍 1
B and E Interchangeability: Virtual and physical licenses are not interchangeable. Each type of license corresponds to its specific deployment mode. When choosing a license, consider your deployment environment (virtual or physical) and select the appropriate license type. Cisco’s Smart Software Licensing simplifies deployment, management, and tracking of virtual firewall instances1.
131ffd6
👍 1
From the CIsco FTDv licensing link posted below: FTDv Licensing This section describes the performance-tiered license entitlements available for the FTDv. "Any FTDv license can be used on any supported FTDv vCPU/memory configuration. This allows FTDv customers to run on a wide variety of VM resource footprints. This also increases the number of supported AWS and Azure instances types. When configuring the FTDv VM, the maximum supported number of cores (vCPUs) is 16 ; and the maximum supported memory is 32 GB RAM ."
aaInman
👍 3
Selected: DE
B, D, and E are all correct. D and E is the solution if going from the Cisco snippet below: "Deploy appliances everywhere, from your data center to your branch office, with the portability of one license to support virtual and physical solutions across public or private clouds (VMware, KVM, OpenStack, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), government clouds) and hyperconverged infrastructure (Cisco HyperFlex, Nutanix AHV). Expand, contract, and relocate workloads over time spanning physical, virtual, and public cloud infrastructures with one license." https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/firepower-ngfw-virtual/threat-defense-virtual-ngfwv-ds.html#:~:text=License%20portability%20across%20clouds
aaInman
👍 1
Selected: BE
Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual supports performance-tiered licensing that provides different throughput levels and VPN connection limits based on deployment requirements⁵. The licenses can be used on any supported cloud platform, including VMware, KVM, OpenStack, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), government clouds, and hyperconverged infrastructure (Cisco HyperFlex, Nutanix AHV)
Bubu3k
👍 2
A & B are for sure wrong Table 2. FTDv Licensed Feature Limits Based on Entitlement https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/firepower/70/fdm/fptd-fdm-config-guide-700/fptd-fdm-license.html Also, C most likely is wrong. I've set up several FTDs and FMCs in a lab, and none of the VMs had that much space allocated. Maybe people should stop trusting chat GPT...just saying
KISRUVEM
👍 1
Selected: BE
Correct answer: B, E A virtual license doesn’t restrict the number of vCPUs, only throughput and VPN peers. This is extra confusing because the FTDv tiers are sometimes listed with the default number of vCPUs for that tier. Virtual and physical licenses definitely can’t be used interchangeably.
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Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
Options D and E are correct because Cisco's official FTDv datasheet explicitly states that there is "License portability across clouds." The datasheet further elaborates that you can deploy appliances with "the portability of one license to support virtual and physical solutions across public or private clouds." This confirms that licenses can be used on both physical and virtual appliances (D) and on any supported cloud platform (E).Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Option A is incorrect because VPN peer limits vary by license tier; for example, the FTDv100 tier supports up to 1000 VPN peers, not a maximum of 250. Option B is incorrect because vCPU support is tied to the specific performance tier; only the FTDv100 tier supports up to 16 vCPUs, while lower tiers support fewer. Option C is incorrect because the storage requirement for the FTDv VM is 50 GB, not 500 GB.Community Comment Notes
There is disagreement in the community over whether virtual and physical licenses are interchangeable. Some users argue they are separate, while others point out a specific Cisco datasheet snippet. As aaInman noted, the datasheet explicitly mentions "the portability of one license to support virtual and physical solutions", confirming option D. Additionally, MooseMullay correctly pointed out that storage requirements are much lower than 500G, invalidating option C.Official Reference
Exam Strategy
For FTDv licensing questions, rely on the official Cisco datasheet quotes regarding "License portability." Do not assume virtual licenses are strictly isolated from physical deployments if the latest datasheet indicates portability.