Upgrading VMware vSphere 5 to the Essentials edition

[Spagg86]

Please bare with me as I am new to VMware stuff.  I started at this company recently and noticed they have Veeam Backup and replication to but after some digging it is not compatible with the Free version of VMware.  So I contacted VMware support and they stated we need the Essentials edition and was as easy as upgrading as just typing in the license key.  So 600 dollars later bought the key and turns out it's not that easy.

getting the error "An error occurred when assigning the specified license key: license is not valid for this product."

Any assistance would be great, perhaps I am just doing it wrong but i am not sure.  Maybe I should get a refund and purchase something else as I only need to upgrade to allow Veeam backup to work.

Attached are screenshots of the errors and product info

[mcrape]

Hi there - have you setup vCenter, and if so, are you adding the key through vCenter, or directly on the host (via the vSphere Client).

Take a look at the official VMware docs on this topic: VMware vSphere 5.1

Also, you may want to alter those images to hide your license keys.

[Spagg86]

ah thank you.  I have VMware vCenter Converter Standalone.  I was adding the key on the vSphere Client on on licensed features tab.

[cjscol]

Is it a vSphere 6 license key you have? You will need to downgrade it to a 5.x license, see VMware KB: How to downgrade license keys in My VMware

[Spagg86]

Hi, yes it sure is vSphere 6 Essentials, thanks I will take a look and report back

[Spagg86]

Well that's no good. Don't have access to the account that setup the VMware originally so don't have the key to downgrade. Would it work to update the Vsphere to 6 then will it accept the Vsphere 6 essentials key?

[mcrape]

That might work, but depending on your environment it may require downtime.

You might be better off contact VMware support to get access to the online account. In there you can downgrade keys and open support cases.