vSAN license alarm 'vSAN Cluster Claimed Capacity Exceeds Entitlement'
Article ID: 326663
Updated On: 03-26-2025
Products
Issue/Introduction
This KB describes how vSAN Trial Capacity may be used and what they need to do if / when the customer exceeds the limit they are entitled to use for VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) purchases.
VVF includes 100GiB of vSAN capacity for each VVF core that is configured as part of a vSAN cluster to help customers easily try vSAN.
This capacity can be used without any additional vSAN purchase for the life of the VVF subscription as long as the cluster capacity does not exceed 100GiB of capacity per vSAN core. See VMware vSphere Foundation Capacity License for vSAN for licensing examples.
The capacity calculation is based on the physical, raw capacity of the storage devices that are claimed by vSAN at the time of the cluster creation.
If the user configures a vSAN cluster with devices that add-up to a total claimed capacity that exceeds 100GiB per vSAN core, then the user will be alerted by a vSAN health check to take action to reduce the physical capacity of the cluster or to purchase licenses for the appropriate amount of vSAN capacity.
The capacity alert is triggered only based on the amount of physical capacity configured in the cluster and is independent of any amount of capacity actually used by VMs in the vSAN cluster.
Because the capacity calculation is based entirely on the physical capacity configured in the cluster, it is possible to receive a capacity alert immediately after the cluster has been configured even if there are no VMs hosted by the cluster. With the alert, the user will be notified to purchase the amount of vSAN required to license the entire capacity of the cluster, not just the incremental amount that is beyond the 100GiB per core entitlement.
Alternatively, the admin may reconfigure the cluster to reduce the cluster capacity so that it uses 100GiB or less per vSAN core.
If the user already has a vSAN key applied to the cluster, the vSAN Trial Capacity does not apply.
The user can determine if they are using vSAN Trial Capacity by navigating to the vSphere Client Licensing and Subscription UI and viewing the end-date for the cluster.
⦁ vSAN Trial Capacity will reflect an expiration date that is 50 years away from the end of the VVF subscription. Users can ignore this expiration date and instead refer to the VVF subscription expiration date as the correct end date. Additionally, users may see an Evaluation License under License type, which can also be ignored as this is a result of how the vSAN Trial Capacity is delivered. There will be no impact in the vSAN functionality and customers can continue to use all the features.
Symptoms:
vSAN 8.0 P03
A cluster level vSAN license alarm 'vSAN Cluster Claimed Capacity Exceeds Entitlement' is triggered. Refer to the below screenshots.
While using the vSAN Trial Capacity, users may notice they are using an Evaluation License and the expiration date is 50 years away from the end of the VVF subscription. Users can ignore this as this is a result of how the vSAN Trial Capacity is delivered.
User might found on vCenter warning message regarding expired or expiring licenses on the inventory, this issue has been investigation and will be fixed on version vCenter 8.0 Update 3 P04 due evaluation license in use.
Environment
Cause
- vSAN cluster claimed capacity exceeds the license entitlement. License entitlement is 100 GiB per CPU core.
- If vSAN cluster claimed capacity has exceeded the entitled capacity by more than 100% but less than 110%, a "Warning" alert will be triggered.
- If vSAN cluster claimed capacity has exceeded the entitled capacity by 110%, a "Critical" alert will be triggered
Resolution
Feedback
