Licensing vCenter 9.x and ESXi 9.x in Air-gapped Environments

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation
• VMware vSphere Foundation
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Starting with version 9.0, manual entry of 25-character license keys in the vSphere Client is retired. Licensing is now subscription-based and managed centrally via VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Operations.
In environments without internet access (air-gapped), a specific disconnected registration workflow is required.

• The Version 9.x Licenses section in vCenter shows "No licenses found"
• No field exists to manually input a license key
• vCenter remains in Evaluation mode after an upgrade to 9.0

Environment

• VMware vCenter 9.x
• VMware ESX 9.x
• Isolated or air-gapped networks

Cause

This change is by design. vCenter 9.0 no longer functions as a standalone licensing authority.
Entitlements must be validated via VCF Operations.

Resolution

Licensing a vCenter requires an existing VCF Operations 9.0 appliance, and for it to be associated with the vCenter in either a VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) deployment.

Deployment Options

• If there is an existing vCenter 9.0, it will need to be "converged" into the 9.0 deployment as part of the installation process using the VCF Installer. This procedure differs based on the use of VVF or VCF, so it is important to read and understand the documentation surrounding each option. See Overview of Deploy, Converge, and Upgrade for more details.
• Review the documentation regarding these two options at Converging Existing Virtual Infrastructure to a VCF or a vSphere Foundation Platform and Supported Scenarios to Converge to VCF.

Licensing a VCF or VVF instance

• Once there is a VCF or VVF deployment with VCF Operations, it can be registered with the VCF Business Service Console to apply and manage the licenses.
• For a detailed explanation of this process, review the documentation at VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 - Licensing.

Air-gapped environments

For air-gapped environments or architectures with multiple isolated sites, follow these steps to enable licensing:

1. Deploy a VCF Operations 9.0 appliance in each isolated environment. Centralized license management across disconnected sites is not supported; each environment requires its own management instance.
2. Download the VCF Operations OVA from the Broadcom Support Portal.
3. Configure the appliance and integrate it with the local vCenter Server 9.x instance
4. Generate a registration request from the VCF Operation UI.
5. On a system with internet access, upload the request file to the VCF Business Service Console to obtain a license entitlement file.
6. Import the entitlement file back into the isolated VCF Operations instance.
7. Assign the validated licenses to the vCenter and ESX hosts via the VCF Operations licensing interface.

Additional Information

Further information can be found in:

• Upgrade and Downgrade VMware License Keys via the Broadcom support portal
• Register VCF Operations in Disconnected Mode

For information regarding product downloads, refer to Download Broadcom products, patches and software