VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.1.1 was just released this week and it brings a number of new capabilities including the recently announced VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA solution. One feature that I was really happy to see get introduced is called "License Later" better known as evaluation mode, which will now allow users to deploy VCF with Cloud Builder without requiring the component license keys up front, which was the previous user experience.
From a hands on and/testing perspective, this will allow for more users to experience VCF and reduce the barrier to entry for those that want to play with the product. Speaking of hands on, I wanted to try out the new evaluation mode using my VCF Automated Lab Deployment script which I had just assumed you would leave the license fields blank within the deployment JSON file but that did not work. After speaking with VCF Engineering, I found that there is a new deployment parameter that must be appended to the JSON file if you are deploying VCF using the Cloud Builder API.
Once I added the configuration, the VCF deployment kicked off successfully!
Deployment JSON:
For deploying VCF using the Cloud Builder API, you will need to append deployWithoutLicenseKeys with a value of true and the all license fields can be left blank or omitted all together
deployWithoutLicenseKeys: true
Deployment Workbook:
For deploying VCF using the Cloud Builder UI, there is a new entry in the workbook called "License Now" which you can select No and leave all license fields blank.
I have already updated my VCF Automated Lab Deployment script to support the new evaluation mode with VCF 5.1.1 as I have already been asked about the capability from a few customers 🙂
For Workload Domain creation, you can also deploy with the new license later feature by adding the "deployWithoutLicenseKeys" parameter into your JSON specification. For an example, search for this parameter in the JSON example for the VCF Domain Creation API.
Greate !! Thank you for the information.
How long can I use evaluation mode?
60 days, its the default thats already built into the underlying components but Cloud Builder was doing a hard check and that has been relaxed
Hi William, screenshot above states "License Now", so we should select that as "No" right? It's not "License Later"
Correct. I’ve fixed the typo
Hi William, if we continue the deployment without license, can we finish the bribg up?, in this case where can we then apply license? On vCenter? On SDDC Manager?
The License Later IS for VCF Bringup and yes, it'll complete the full deployment and all components will be in eval mode until you license within SDDC Manager using individual component licenses OR the new single solution license key
Hi william , we face an issue while bring-up vcf 5.1.1 with subscription licence we use the licence instead of choosing licence later and we face error " fail to update sddc manager with licence information " any idea how to solve this or workaround
William, Thank you so much for all of the work that you share!
I am a VMware Partner. I can't get VCF through our partner NSF program so I buy an annual VMUG Advantage subscription.
They are only providing version 5.0.0.0 for download. I also can't find anywhere to register for a VCF evaluation to download 5.1.1.
Do you have any ideas how I can get the 5.1.1 bits for my lab? Its a lot of extra work to upgrade especially on something that I blow up and recreate regularly.