Counting Cores for VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation and TiBs for vSAN

Products

VMware Cloud Foundation VMware vSAN VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Determining the Required Subscription Capacity for VCF and vSphere Foundation

VCF and vSphere Foundation subscription capacity is based on the total number of physical CPU cores of each CPU on all the ESXi hosts associated with the VCF instances or vCenter Server that customers plan to license with VCF or vSphere Foundation, respectively.

Customers must purchase a minimum license capacity of 16 cores per CPU.

Foundation Subscription Licensing = The VCF and vSphere Foundation subscription capacity that requires licensing is the greater of either:

Number of core licenses required per CPU × number of CPUs per ESXi host × number of ESXi hosts

16 cores x total number of CPUs in each ESXi host

Determining the Required Subscription Capacity for vSAN

The vSAN capacity subscription capacity is based on the total raw physical storage (TiBs) claimed by vSAN on all the ESXi hosts in each vSAN Cluster associated with the vCenter Server or VCF instances that customers plan to license for vSAN.

vSAN Subscription capacity = total number of TiBs claimed by vSAN in each ESXi host x number of ESXi hosts in each cluster

General Licensing Notes:

Each core requires a single license. These licenses do not come in bundles of 16.

16 cores is the minimum requirement to be purchased per CPU/physical processor.

Each TiB claimed by vSAN requires a single license. There are no license minimums.

vSphere versions running 8.0U2b patch release and later will receive vSAN trial capacity in vSphere Foundation. Documentation and tools shared in this KB article assumes the software is on 8.0U2b or above.

Software running prior releases (ex. vSphere 8.0U1 or 7.x) will not receive vSAN trial capacity. Instead, customers will need to license the total number of TiBs claimed by the vSAN cluster.

The following tables describe how to determine the required subscription capacity for VCF, vSphere Foundation, and vSAN.

VCF with vSAN Capacity Table

VCF with vSAN Capacity Licensing Notes:

VCF provides 1 TiB of vSAN entitlement for each VCF core purchased.

Customers can allocate surplus vSAN TiB licenses from VCF to another vSAN cluster that may have higher storage capacity requirements in the VCF environment

Customers can always purchase an additional quantity of vSAN capacity for the incremental storage they may require for their VCF environment.

# of Hosts	CPUs / Host	Cores / CPU	TiBs / Host	TiBs / Cluster	Entitled TiBs from Foundation	Subscription Capacity Required for VCF (Core)	Subscription Capacity Required for vSAN (TiB)	Calculation
3	1	8	3.840	11.520	48	48	-36	VCF: Though the number of cores is 8 on each CPU, customers must purchase 48 because the minimum subscription capacity is 16 cores per CPU and there is 1 CPU on each of the 3 ESXi hosts. vSAN: Customers will receive 48 TiBs of vSAN, which exceeds their desired amount of capacity and there will be 36 TiBs left over. No additional capacity is needed.
3	2	16	1.840	5.520	96	96	-90	VCF: Subscription capacity is the total number of cores × number of CPUs × number of ESXi hosts. vSAN: Customers will receive 96 TiBs of vSAN, which exceeds their desired amount of capacity and there will be 90 TiBs left over. No additional capacity is needed.
3	2	16	49.920	149.760	96	96	54	VCF: Subscription capacity is the total number of cores × number of CPUs × number of ESXi hosts. vSAN: Customers will receive 96 TiBs of vSAN and need to purchase an additional 54 TiBs of vSAN capacity.
3	2	24	61.440	184.320	144	144	41	VCF: Subscription capacity is the total number of cores × number of CPUs × number of ESXi hosts. vSAN: Customers will receive 144 TiBs of vSAN and need to purchase an additional 41 TiBs of vSAN capacity.
3	1	6	8.393	25.178	48	48	-22	VCF: Though the number of cores is 6 on each CPU, customers must purchase 48 because the minimum subscription capacity is 16 cores per CPU and there is 1 CPU on each of the 3 ESXi hosts. vSAN: Customers will receive 48 TiBs of vSAN, which exceeds their desired amount of capacity and there will be 22 TiBs left over. No additional capacity is needed.
4	2	20	4.473	17.893	160	160	-142	VCF: Subscription capacity is the total number of cores × number of CPUs × number of ESXi hosts. vSAN: Customers will receive 160 TiBs of vSAN, which exceeds their desired amount of capacity and there will be 142 TiBs left over. No additional capacity is needed.

vSphere Foundation with vSAN Capacity Table

vSphere Foundation with vSAN Capacity Licensing Notes:

vSphere Foundation provides up to 100 GiB of vSAN trial capacity for each VVF core deployed in a vSAN cluster.

vSAN trial capacity is tied to the vSphere Foundation core and cannot be reallocated across the environment.

If customers exceed the amount of vSAN trial capacity in the vSAN cluster, they must license the total number of TiBs claimed in the vSAN cluster starting from 0.

vSAN trial capacity can be calculated as follows: Number of vSphere Foundation core licenses in each ESXi host deployed in the vSAN cluster x 100 GiB. Divide by 1024 to convert capacity to TiB for an easier comparison.

ESXi Hosts (in vSAN cluster)	CPUs per ESXi Host	Cores per CPU	TiBs per ESXi Host	TiBs per Cluster	Entitled TiBs from Foundation	Subscription Capacity Required for vSphere Foundation (Core)	Subscription Capacity Required for vSAN (TiB)	Calculation
3	1	8	3.840	11.520	4.688	48	12	vSphere Foundation: Though the number of cores is 8 on each CPU, customers must purchase 48 cores because the minimum subscription capacity is 16 cores per CPU and there is 1 CPU on each of the 3 ESXi hosts. vSAN: There is insufficient trial capacity from VVF. Therefore, subscription capacity is the total number of TiBs x number of ESXi hosts in each vSAN cluster.
3	2	16	1.840	5.520	9.375	96	0	vSphere Foundation: Subscription capacity is the total number of cores × number of CPUs × number of ESXi hosts. vSAN: Since the trial capacity (9.375 TiBs) from VVF is greater than or equal to the number of TiBs in vSAN cluster (5.520), customers have sufficient vSAN trial capacity and do not need to purchase additional vSAN capacity.
3	2	16	49.920	149.760	9.375	96	150	vSphere Foundation: Subscription capacity is the total number of cores × number of CPUs × number of ESXi hosts. vSAN: There is insufficient trial capacity from VVF. Therefore, subscription capacity is the total number of TiBs x number of ESXi hosts in each vSAN cluster.
3	2	24	61.440	184.320	14.063	144	185	vSphere Foundation: Subscription capacity is the total number of cores × number of CPUs × number of ESXi hosts. vSAN: There is insufficient trial capacity from VVF. Therefore, subscription capacity is the total number of TiBs x number of ESXi hosts in each vSAN cluster.
3	1	6	8.393	25.178	4.688	48	26	vSphere Foundation: Though the number of cores is 6 on each CPU, customers must purchase 48 because the minimum subscription capacity is 16 cores per CPU and there is 1 CPU on each of the 3 ESXi hosts. vSAN: There is insufficient trial capacity from VVF. Therefore, subscription capacity is the total number of TiBs x number of ESXi hosts in each vSAN cluster.
4	2	20	4.473	17.893	15.625	160	18	vSphere Foundation: Subscription capacity is the total number of cores × number of CPUs × number of ESXi hosts. vSAN: There is insufficient trial capacity from VVF. Therefore, subscription capacity is the total number of TiBs x number of ESXi hosts in each vSAN cluster.

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1

VMware vSAN 6.0.x

VMware vSAN 7.0.x

VMware vSAN 8.0.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Resolution

The number of core licenses (with a minimum of 16 cores per physical CPU) required for VCF and vSphere Foundation and TiB licenses required for vSAN can be identified in the methods below:

For small deployments and ESXi hosts not connected to a vCenter Server, core licensing can be determined:

Foundation: Navigate to Host > Hardware > CPU Processors and check the value of Cores per socket to determine how many cores your host has per CPU and calculate as described in the Determining the Required Subscription Capacity section. (See Figure #1 for an example screenshot of the UI).

For larger deployments: VMware has developed the attached license counting PowerCLI tool that collects and consolidates information on the quantity of core licenses (with a minimum of 16 cores per physical CPU) and TiB licenses required for each host connected to a vCenter Server.

VCF and vSphere Foundation require core licenses for all physical CPU cores on each CPU running the software. In the event users disable physical CPU cores in the BIOS settings or other means, the script may produce inaccurate results. As such, all physical CPU cores need to be activated on each CPU when running the script.

*TiB licensing for vSAN: There is no option to view the total raw physical storage capacity claimed by the vSAN cluster in the product UI. The storage capacity displayed in the Capacity Overview tab represents the available vSAN datastore capacity, not raw physical storage capacity. You will need to run the license counting PowerCLI script to determine accurate TiB license counts.

License Counting PowerCLI tool

Prerequisites:

VMware PowerCLI 13.3 or greater installed

Download and extract the attached script

Use:

Connect to vCenter Server:

Connect-VIServer -Server vCenter_Server

Import PowerCLI function:

Import-Module .\FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage.psm1

Run Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage function and specify deployment type to retrieve results. By default, the script will iterate through all vSphere Clusters.

Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -DeploymentType VCF

Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -DeploymentType VVF

Here is an example output after running the PowerCLI tool.

VCF with vSAN Example

VVF with vSAN Example

The table below describes each of the columns in the Compute Usage and vSAN Usage sections. At the bottom of the output shows the total quantity of VCF or VVF cores and vSAN TiB licenses required.

Column Name	Description
Compute Usage Information
CLUSTER	This column displays the name of the cluster. If there is no value in this column, this means the host is not part of the cluster.
VMHOST	This column displays the host IP address.
NUM_CPU_SOCKETS	This column displays the quantity of CPU sockets in the host.
NUM_CPU_CORES_PER_SOCKET	This column displays the quantity of cores in each CPU socket in the host.
FOUNDATION_LICENSE_CORE_COUNT	This column displays the quantity of core licenses required for VCF or VVF licensing in the cluster.
vSAN Usage Information
CLUSTER	This column displays the name of the cluster.
NUM_HOSTS	This column displays the quantity of hosts in the cluster.
NUM_CPU_SOCKETS	This column displays the quantity of CPU sockets in the cluster.
NUM_CPU_CORES	This column displays the quantity of cores in the cluster.
FOUNDATION_LICENSE_CORE_COUNT	This column displays the quantity of core licenses from the Foundation offer in the cluster.
ENTITLED_VSAN_LICENSE_TIB_COUNT	This column displays the quantity of TiB licenses received from the Foundation offer in the cluster.
REQUIRED_VSAN_TIB_CAPACITY	This column displays the required TiB capacity for the cluster.
VSAN_LICENSE_TIB_COUNT	This column displays the number of TiB licenses required for the cluster after taking into account any TiB entitlement received from the Foundation offer. If the figure is negative or 0, this represents that the quantity of TiBs received from the Foundation offer is greater than or equal to the quantity of TiBs that require licenses. No additional licensing is required and excess capacity can be aggregated. If the figure is positive, this represents that the quantity of TiBs that require licenses is greater than the quantity of TiBs received from the Foundation offer. Additional licensing is required.

To specify a specific vSphere Cluster, you can use the -ClusterName option:

Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -ClusterName “Cluster_Name” –DeploymentType VCF
To output the results into a CSV file, you can use the -Csv option:

Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -ClusterName Cluster_Name –DeploymentType VCF -CSV
To name the CSV file, you can use the -Filename option:

Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -ClusterName Cluster_Name –DeploymentType VCF -CSV -Filename “name.csv”

*Note that you will receive two files. The one with -vsan appended includes the TiB count information, while the other file includes the core count information.

Troubleshooting

The user may encounter error messages when using the license counting PowerCLI tool. The error is due to an identified issue (ESX servers disconnected from vCenter, PDL devices in cluster, etc.) in the environment, which may impact the number TiB licenses required. In these cases, the output from the tool will provide an error message with the description and information to resolve the error before rerunning the tool.

Below is an example of the output with an error message.

Related Information

Figure #1 – Core Count

Additional Information

Note: If when attempting to run this script you receive an error similar to: "cannot be loaded. The file xxxx.psm1 is not digitally signed. You cannot run this script on the current system. For more information abut running scripts and setting execution policy, see about_Execution_Policies at htt;s//microsoft...."

Run the following command to bypass the execution policy, then run the script again:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Bypass

Disclaimer: Broadcom reserves the right to periodically update licensing enablement tools, which are provided for informational purposes only. Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the licensing enablement tools, Broadcom does not accept any legal responsibility for any actions taken based on the information contained herein and Broadcom makes no representations or warranties of any kind.

Attachments

FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage.psm1 get_app