Stretching vSAN Cluster via API fails when using vSAN TiBs License in VCF 5.2

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager

Issue/Introduction

SDDC manager is unable to validate vSAN TiB License while stretching the vSAN cluster via API in VCF 5.2

Cause

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 does not support the "License Now" option for vSAN add-on licenses based on capacity per tebibyte (TiB)

With vSphere 8.0 Update 3, you can license your use of vSAN storage based on TiB capacity. When using a per-TiB vSAN license with VMware Cloud Foundation, if you enter the license key using the "License Now" option either during bringup of the management domain, or when deploying or expanding a VI workload domain, the workflow fails.

 

Resolution

When Commissioning via the SDDC Manager UI you have the option to License Later. When expanding/stretching clusters License Later option is not available by Default.

Please take a Snapshot of SDDC Manager before carrying out the steps. Ensure a valid backup of SDDC Manager is available also just incase.

In order to workaround the license issue via API:

1. Remove the license key from the json.
2. Add the following line to the json  - "deployWithoutLicenseKeys": true
3. Attempt the validation of the json file
4. Once the cluster is stretched assign the license to the hosts from the vCenter UI. This should also be reflected in SDDC Manager once applied.

Once the deployment is completed please revert the change:

1. Remove the entry from the json file - "deployWithoutLicenseKeys": true