Applying a vRealize Cloud key to vROPs from vRLCM fails

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• In vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (versions lower than 8.4.1), when a vRealize Cloud license key is applied to a managed vRealize Operations instance that already has a perpetual license key applied to it, the task shows success in vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager, but the vRealize Operations UI does not show newly applied license key.
• Upon an inventory sync of the vRealize Operations instance in vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager, the old license is shown as active.

Environment

VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.1.x
VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.2.x
VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.3.x
VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.4.x
VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.x

Cause

By design, vRealize Operations does not allow to apply any term license on top of any valid perpetual license key.
vRealize Cloud license keys are, by design, term licenses hence they do not get applied to vRealize Operations when a perpetual license key is already applied.
The vRealize Operations APIs do no respond with proper error details for the license apply task failure mentioned above, hence vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager shows the task as completed successfully even though it has actually failed in vRealize Operations.

Resolution

This is issue is addressed in vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.4.1 and later, available from VMware Downloads.

In vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.4.1 or later, the user needs to select the existing perpetual license key for removal, before submitting the task to apply the vRealize Cloud license key.
This shall ensure that the existing license key gets removed from vRealize Operations before applying the vRealize Cloud license.

Workaround:
It is recommended to use vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.4.1 Patch 1 to completely get rid of this issue.  Patch 1 includes some additional critical fixes for vRealize Cloud licensing.

However, if moving to vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.4.1 Patch 1 is not possible, then the workaround is to perform the following steps sequentially:

1. Log into vRealize Operations web UI and remove the existing perpetual license key.
2. In vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager, perform an inventory sync for the vRealize Operations instance.  This shall update the license reference(s) for the vRealize Operations instance properly in vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager.
3. Apply the vRealize Cloud license key to the vRealize Operations instance from the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager UI.

Once the task is complete, access the vRealize Operations UI to verify that the vRealize Cloud license has been applied correctly.