Chicken and Egg Licensing

[chris_delaney]

Hi Everybody,

I've just been reading through the licensing bits of the installation guide and I was wondering whether anyone could give me a quick guide as to the best way to set up the licensing for VI3 please?

From what I can gather you can start the process by installing the VC Server with the license server in a virtual machine. But how would I license the ESX host that contains that VM? Would I use host-based licensing for the initial ESX machine and then change it to the license server-based model afterwards?

Many thanks.

[thorsten_tritts]

Well,

if you start with the VC server including the license server you can easily point your host server to use a license from that. By connecting the host server inside VC they'll take the needed licenses automatically, just edit the "Software -> Licensed Features" configuration option inside the configuration tab.

If you prefer a hostbased licensing you'll get a problem to connect your host server to the VC server because of missing VC agents licenses.

My suggest ist to use centralized licensing only, thats the most comfortable way to have a proper and working licensing.

[Chiel]

I think his question is more in line with;

How do i power on my first VM where i want to host my License Server? Is that correct?

You could just install a temp license server so your first host can power on a VM. Then install your license server in that VM and let your host point to the new License Server.

I wouldn't use a license server in a VM without HA and DRS tho.

Personally im running my license server on a physical server together with Virtual Center.

[chris_delaney]

So if I want my VC Management Server to be a VM and I want to use centralised licensing then I'll have to create it as a physical machine first then P2V it?

[Chiel]

You could just install a temporary license server on your own Desktop for example.

Then create a new Virtual Machine, and install the license server on that. No need to P2V.

Or indeed get a host based license file. Put it on your ESX Server. Then install a new Virtual Machine, install a License Server into that Virtual Machine and convert your host based License File to a central license file.

Message was edited by:

Chiel

[lozzieb]

As I understand it VMware's recommendation is to run a License Server on physical hardware (just like Virtual Center and a Virtual Center Database Server)

If a License Server becomes unavailable there is a 14 day grace period before servers using centralised licensing lose their status.

Thus, dont virtualise the license server in anyway if you can avoid it. Put it on the (hopefully physical) Virtual Center Server.

If you have a situation where you can't avoid using a VM for licensing then i agree with the sentiment above - dont use a Virtual Licence server without considering config HA.

[chris_delaney]

Thanks for the input chaps - I'll probably have VC and licensing on a physical server just to keep things a bit simpler and more de-coupled.