Evaluation mode vSAN license applied after upgrading vCenter Server from 6.x to 7.x or 7.x to 8.x

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
After upgrading from vCenter Server 6.x to 7.x or 7.x to 8.x the vSAN license is set to use Evaluation license.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

Cause

As vSAN licensing is applied at the cluster level, the version of vCenter (and hence vSphere) in use dictates the version of the vSphere cluster entity and hence which version of license it requires.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, apply a vSAN 7.x/8.x license to the environment by upgrading the older license, see KB Upgrade and Downgrade VMware License Keys for more details or providing a new license.

vSAN will continue functioning with the feature sets available of a 6.x/7.x cluster, meaning you won't be able to utilize any of the latest 7.x/8.x features until the ESXi version of the hosts has been upgraded and a 7.x/8.x license has been applied to the cluster.

If you need to acquire vSAN 7.x/8.x licenses open a Non-Technical case with our Licensing Team.