License checkbox is greyed out and cannot be assigned to VCF Operations in VCF 9

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to assign a license to a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Operations instance, the license assignment option is disabled or greyed out in the user interface.

• The system prevents the selection and assignment of the desired license.

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9

Cause

This issue occurs because the license key has been fully consumed by the primary VCF Operations instance within the shared license pool, leaving no available capacity for additional instances.

During initial registration, all purchased cores are pooled together into a single default license allocation per product (e.g., VCF or vSphere Foundation). The interface prevents the assignment of the exact same license allocation to a new instance. A single license allocation cannot be used across two different VCF Operations instances simultaneously.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, the existing default license must be split to create separate allocations for each VCF Operations instance.

Perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to the licensing management section within the VCF console.

2. Identify the license key currently assigned to the existing VCF Operations instance.

3. Click the vertical-ellipsis (⋮) icon and perform a Split License operation to divide the default license and create separate license keys from the original pool.

4. Assign the newly available license key to the second VCF Operations instance.

Note: The cores allocated during the split step will determine the upper limit that can be used in the environment. This core allocation can be adjusted later if requirements change.

Additional Information

For additional details, refer to the Resolution section of KB 437242: Getting started with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) or VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) V9 Licensing