VMware vSphere 7 Essentials Kit for 3 hosts license confusion

[Temperator]

Hello.

At the beginning I want to say that the whole matter is complicated by the fact that I'm trying to configure a remote environment belonging to the customer and he's the one who bought the software and has access to any and all licensing portals. Having said that:

The customer bought "VMware vSphere 7 Essentials Kit for 3 hosts (Max 2 CPU per host, 32 cores/CPU), 1 YR Lic and Sub" along with the Dell machine. We were told by the supplier that the license should be claimed on Dell's PAC site. Apparently the customer did so and sent me a license code.

I installed a fresh ESXi machine and wanted to add the license that customer had sent me. The license code seems to follow the proper format (5 groups of 5 characters separated with dashes) but the server said "Please provide a valid license key". OK. So I thought "never played much with vCenter, maybe I'm supposed to install vCenter first and it's for vCenter licensing and will give me those 3 hosts I can license from vCenter". But my test installation of vCenter also worked ok in trial mode and trying to add said license ends with "wrong license key".

So I'm a bit puzzled here. Firstly, because I thought that I'm supposed to get separate license to use for my ESXi hosts and separate one for vCenter to manage them but the customer claims that he's been mailed only a single license. And secondly because that license doesn't seem to work anywhere.

Did I miss something and there is another ESXi installer for use with Essentials Kit license? Or does the customer need to do something else (like activate the code on some other portal to get the final valid code for use on the server)?

I'm confused.

 

[Ashil Krishnan]

Hi  ,

If you have a license that says for vsphere , it is for ESXi hosts and not for vCenter. vCenter server licenses are separate and should be included in the essentials kit.

Also ensure that you have installed the right version of vCenter and ESXi hosts(License for 7.x will only work with 7.x versions and not earlier versions.

https://store-us.vmware.com/vmware-vsphere-essentials-kit-282883900.html (Please read the details on right hand side pane)

https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2018/10/vcenter-server-licensing-options.html 

I would suggest checking with the customer once again.

Hope that helps.

Please mark my comment as the Correct Answer/Kudos if this solution resolved your problem

[E_Espinel]

Hello.
In the sheet or mail in which you receive the PAC (Partner Activation Code) from the manufacturer usually comes the instructions to register and obtain the licenses on the website My VMware (user/password, free registration).

If you are a new customer you must register with an email from the company, if you already have other VMware products managed you must use the same user and password you have.

attached link about dell PAC
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000133380/how-to-register-and-activate-vmware-oem-product-licenses-using-the-digital-download-store

The licenses you get for a kit would be one for vcenter server and one for vSphere Essentials for 6 CPUs.

 

[Temperator]

Thank you both for confirmation. So it seems that something must have indeed been done wrong with the registration process or something else. I'll try to walk the client through the whole process again tomorrow an we'll see what happens.

That's what you get when you can't do something yourself. And since these are customer's licenses I couldn't register them as myself so that's where all starts.

Anyway, thank you for responses, it shows that I didn't lose my mind