How to access iso image files if you have a perpetual license for vSphere

[Masahito Sekimoto]

I have a serial number for a perpetual licence for vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus.
But I lost the iso image file.
How do I access a new iso image?

Best regards.

[NickDaGeekUK]

unless you had an active support contract at the handover to the new portal AFAIK you cannot

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IT Manager. That person just about managing to keep the IT going with no budget or staff despite the effects of Senior Management and End Users.

IT Worker. A biological system for turning caffeine into code.
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[E_Espinel]

Hello.

 You can get a custom ISO from the sever (Hardware) manufacturer on their website.

In general, the ISO image is only one and the features are activated or deactivated according to the license you enter.

When you install VMware vSphere, a demo license is included with all the features activated for 60 days.

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Enrique Espinel F.
Freelance Senior Technical Specialist IBM, Lenovo, Veeam Backup and VMware vSphere VTSP-SV / VTSP-HCI
ISRAEL – Karmiel (UTC +3)
I speak Russian, Spanish Hebrew (basic) and a little English.
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[NickDaGeekUK]

Hi, in a similar position and have used the hardware manufacturers ISO image download as recommended by Enrique (thank you) but as far as I know (please correct me if I am wrong) the VCSA image is not available from the hardware manufacturer. Can anyone enlighten me as to how I obtain this now please?

Kind Regards,

Nick

[E_Espinel]

Hello.

If you bought a license 6 a long time ago, you had to register it on the VMware website to get the respective keys. You had to have a company account on the VMware website with its respective user and password.
Since VMware was acquired by Broadcom, all old accounts and users must be migrated. Attached link.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-on-AWS/services/com.vmware.vmc-aws.getting-started/GUID-0693B08D-69AB-4C4D-9E84-498F052AAE9B.html

After finishing the migration of the user or users, you will be able to access the Broadcom support portal where your licenses and keys should be, and you can also obtain the software downloads.
You should consider that version 6.X is no longer supported and that there was a deadline for the migration of Broadcom accounts and users.

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Enrique Espinel F.
Freelance Senior Technical Specialist IBM, Lenovo, Veeam Backup and VMware vSphere VTSP-SV / VTSP-HCI
ISRAEL – Karmiel (UTC +3)
I speak Russian, Spanish Hebrew (basic) and a little English.
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[NickDaGeekUK]

Hi Enrique,

Thank you for trying to help, you have been extremely helpful to me and many others in the past and I value your assistance.

Please do not take what follows personally, my comments are solely for Broadcom. I feel deep sympathy for the old employees and associates of VMWare. I do not envy the position they are in now.

What Broadcom are saying is very simple; the answer is no downloads will ever be available for many old perpetual licence customers. This was not an accident it was a deliberate choice of Broadcom.

We, and many others, did not have a valid support subscription at the migration date because it was impossible to obtain for end of support software. Therefore, you were blackmailed. Either purchase a new version subscription before the deadline or you are never going to be able to download VCSA and related ESXi software. This even though we own licences for this and are therefore legally entitled to continue to use perpetually.

I don't agree with this policy decision on purely ethical and moral grounds. I will ignore the legal questions as litigation on this and other related issues may be current.

There is nothing to stop Broadcom hosting a simple FTP server, solely for the use of perpetual licence customers to download the software they own outside the structure of the Broadcom portal for existing customers.

Morally and ethically speaking that is what should have happened. Broadcom still can do the right thing. The question is, will they? Do they even care about ethics and morality? To date, the evidence is clear; the answer is no.

Ultimately the question for the CEO and board of Broadcom will be; when litigation costs are added to the loss of customers (caused by massive licence fee increases and the disastrous migration of existing customers with valid contracts) and the costs of acquisition have Broadcom made or lost money i.e. was it worth it? The jury is still out on that but regardless of financial profit they will make one guaranteed loss; the reputation of Broadcom will never recover.

Kind Regards,

Nick