When is a support subscription required

Under which conditions is an active support license required for a system, what will work and what won't if a license is expired

An active support subscription is required for any device that is in production, it covers hardware and software maintenance and technical assistance.

A device with an active support subscription

• is eligible for replacement in case of hardware failure
• is eligible to contact a support center for assistance
• is able to download and install PAN-OS and App-ID updates directly from the update server
• software and content packages can be downloaded from the support portal for manual updates/upgrades

A device without an active support subscription

• is not eligible for replacement upon hardware failure
• is not eligible to contact a support center for assistance
• software and content updates are not available for download as these are part of the support subscription
• will continue to process sessions as normal, but the content inspection (layer7) will become outdated quickly