Host upgrade, license migration questions

[trink408]

Hello all,

we are in the process of migrating to new esxi host servers. My question is in regards to moving my licenses.

The new hosts are up and running, and connected to vcenter with evaluation licenses. Unfortunately the evaluation licenses are going to expire shortly, and we are not quite ready for production on the new hosts because our testing was delayed.

How would I migrate licenses to the new hosts?

What happens to the existing hosts if I do that? I would need to keep exiting hosts connected to vcenter for now because we aren't ready for complete migration yet.

I was told if I moved the licenses to my new hosts, the old hosts can still be managed by vcenter for 60 days in eval mode, is that correct?

I'm not sure that I can even move my licenses to the new hosts without first removing the old hosts from the license/vcenter?

Would it be better to ask VMware for an extended eval key for now to complete our testing?

Any insight or information on this would be appreciated! Doing our best to avoid any interruption to production.

Thank you,

[IRIX201110141]

First question:  Upgrade mean vSphere 5->6  or 6-7?

One answer: No your hosts cant go back to eval mode. After 60 day of runtime its not possible to switch back.

Regards,
Joerg

[a_p_]

Would it be better to ask VMware for an extended eval key for now to complete our testing?

That's what I would recommend. Reach out to VMware and ask them for an extension. If the current environment is under active SnS, I don't see a reason why they wouldn't help you.

André

[trink408]

Thank you.

I reached out to VMware to see what they can do. We do have active support, and I agree this makes the most sense.

Kind of disappointing the VMware resource assigned to us was the one that said we could apply the license to the old/new hosts at the same time, and would have 60 days to run in that manner until we had to remove the old hosts or be in violation of the license. I don't see any way to even apply the current license to the new hosts as it just says we have insufficient resources for it. I'm sure we have to remove it from the old hosts before we can assign it to the new hosts.

FYI, we are upgrading from 6.0 hosts to 6.7u3. So I believe the licenses are still the same?

Kevin

[a_p_]

FYI, we are upgrading from 6.0 hosts to 6.7u3. So I believe the licenses are still the same?

Yes, licenses are usually for major version, which is version 6.x in your case.

I can't unfortunately comment much on what you've been told about licensing. However, from a technical point of view you could assign the same license keys to multiple hosts, and use more licenses than purchased (unless all hosts are managed by the same vCenter Server). This of course would violate the EULA. So the proper way is to ask for an extension.

André

[trink408]

Thank you.

In regards to the license, what is the proper way to move a license over to a new host? It appears from what I'm seeing I would have to remove the license from an existing host first in order to free up some capacity to use on the new hosts? Is that because these are all managed by the same vcenter as you mentioned?

What happens when you try to remove a license from a host, or do you have to remote the host from vcenter in order to free up the license?

Screenshot of what I see:

[a_p_]

In order to free up CPU licenses in vCenter, you need to remove the host from it.

André

[trink408]

Thank you.

At that point I can no longer add that old host back into vcenter then?

[IRIX201110141]

Correct.

<hint>If you install it again with a fresh version of 6.x than you have 60 days of eval again</hint>.

With a Hostprofile that can be done within a few minutes.

Regards,

Joerg