Accidental License Server Deletion Causes Expired Evaluation License Lockout in VCF Operations

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

• In VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Operations, the registered license server registration was inadvertently deleted.
• Evaluation licenses for the environment have concurrently expired, the cluster has entered a locked state.
• Deployment of any new workloads, including the provisioning of a replacement License server VM, are not possible due to the evaluation license expiry.

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.0
• VCF Operations

Cause

The license server registration was intentionally deleted in VCF Operations to restart the licensing process, which severed the connection to the License Server while evaluation licenses expired, resulting in a locked cluster state.

Resolution

1. Deploy a new ESXi host into the environment.

2. Utilize the default 90-day evaluation license that is included with the new ESXi host to bypass the expired evaluation licenses on the existing cluster.

3. Redeploy the license server onto this newly provisioned host using the temporary evaluation capacity.

4. Continue with the disconnected mode runbook to finalize the configuration and restore standard licensing.

   • Register VCF Operations in Disconnected Mode