Unable to Re-assign VCF Licenses Due to Duplicate/Incorrect License Server Registration

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

 

• Administrator is unable to re-assign licenses to a newly deployed, correctly named License Server.

• Two License Servers appear registered in the Broadcom Service Console (BSC) and VCF Operations UI (often one with a concatenated hostname/domain name due to a known OVA deployment quirk).

• vCenter and vSAN show their license capacity (e.g., 96 cores) as still registered and bound to the older, incorrectly named License Server, effectively starving the new server of capacity.

 

Environment

 

• VCF Operations 9.1 (or recent upgrade from 9.0.x)

• Centralized License Server / Broadcom Service Console (BSC)

 

Cause

When the initial (incorrectly named) License Server is deployed and powered on, its first-boot scripts successfully execute and register the appliance with the Broadcom Service Console (BSC). This action cryptographically binds the license entitlement to that specific VM's unique ID.

Simply renaming or powering off the incorrect VM in vCenter does not sever this backend binding. As a result, the old server locks the license capacity, preventing the new License Server from checking out the necessary licenses.

Resolution

To cleanly sever the bindings and re-assign the capacity, the release must be gracefully processed by the original server.

1. Isolate the New Server: Temporarily power off or disconnect the new (correctly named) License Server to prevent network conflicts.

2. Restore the Old Server: Power on the original (incorrectly named) License Server.

3. Release Capacity: Once the old server is online and communicating with BSC, navigate to the License Management UI and manually unassign/reclaim the licenses bound to it.

4. Swap Servers: Power off the old License Server, and power on (or reconnect) the new License Server.

5. Allow Synchronization: Wait for the automated licensing sync. Do not immediately troubleshoot if vCenter/vSAN do not update instantly. 

6. Re-assign Licenses: Assign the newly freed license capacity to the new License Server.

7. Clean Up: Once the new License Server reflects the correct allocation and the environment shows as fully licensed, permanently delete the old License Server from vCenter and unregister it from the UI.

Additional Information

See the following VMware Knowledge base for additional information:

Unable to apply licenses to vCenter Server from VCF Operations 9.1.x after redeployment of License Server