When you access your new VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) license in the Broadcom Support Portal (BSP), it is delivered using the new solution license key type which can activate multiple components within a VVF or VCF deployment.
By default, VVF and VCF licenses will come entitled for latest vSphere 8.0 Update 2b and VCF 5.1.1 respectively, because those are the minimum versions that support the new solution license key type. With that said, users can also downgrade their existing VVF and VCF licenses to support earlier vSphere 8.x and 7.x releases using the BSP license management system, which was something I had recently learned about and went through the process myself, so here is what it looks like end-to-end.
Note: License downgrade requires both user downgrade permissions in the BSP license management as well as using non-NFR licenses, which can obtained through the BSP self-service "Trials and Beta" or internally for employees. For NFR licenses, downgrade is not available.
Step 1 - Login to BSP and then select My Entitlements and to locate a specific order, use the Contract # which can be found in your Broadcom software delivery email, which I found to be the quickest way to identify a specific order, if you have more than one purchase.
Next, select either the VVF or VCF item and click on Entitlement Details button as shown in the screenshot below.
Step 2 - Once in the expanded component view, select either vCenter Server, ESXi or vSAN (all of which can support downgrade operation) and then click on the License icon.
Step 3 - Once in the Licensing view, I also found it useful to filter by Contract # to locate a specific license SKU and from here you should be able to find your VVF or VCF license key.
Also make sure that you have the Upgrade And Downgrade permission, which can check by going to Users tab for a given SiteID.
In my example below I am accessing the default VVF license and it contains the following product name "VMware vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for vSphere Foundation (Supports vCenter Server 8.0U2b and above)". When you click on the "three dots" to the right of the license key, you will find a number of license key operations (split, move, copy, upgrade and downgrade)
Step 4 - Click on the Downgrade License option and a wizard will pop up that will allow you to downgrade the current license to the next logical version which is for vSphere 8.x using a non-solution key by specifying the quantity and then selecting the applicable product name as shown in the screenshot below.
Once the operation has completed successfully, you will now have a new license key and the product name will show up as "VMware vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for vSphere Foundation (Supports vCenter Server 8.0.0a and above)". For organizations that have not upgraded to vSphere 8.0 Update 2b (vCenter or ESXi) and are running at least vSphere 8.0a, then this downgraded license key can be used.
Step 5 - For vSphere 7.x environment, we need to perform the downgrade option one more time following the exact same procedure as before by selecting the downgrade option.
We then specify the quantity and select applicable product and a new license key will now be generated for "VMware vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus for vSphere Foundation" which is now compatible for vSphere 7.x deployment.
Note: For customers that have purchased extended vSphere support, you will be able to perform one additional downgrade for vSphere 6.x deployments and the product name would show as "VMware vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus for Cloud Foundation".
Similarly, we can also go back to our original VVF or VCF solution license key by reversing the process and selecting the Upgrade License operation.
Lastly, since this was a question that I had recently answered, you do NOT need to have vCenter Server to use the new VVF or VCF solution license key, you just need to have the minimum vSphere version which is 8.0 Update 2b, so for a standalone ESXi host that would ESXi 8.0 Update 2b which I have demonstrated in the screenshot below using the Embedded ESXi Host Client to apply a VCF license key.
Thanks for this! My vSphere entitlement options now look similar to your screenshots here (though the downgrade option was different last week for some reason).
My vCenter downgrade, however, wants me to move from vCenter 8 standard for VVF -- to vCenter 7 standard for VCF (???). Any insights? I'm not licensed for VCF.
Last week one of my options was to downgrade from a key with 1 year support, to a key with 5 years -- so maybe my specific case just needs to shake out a bit...
I have a question regarding VCF Licenses. I have VCF License and I downloaded VMware-VMvisor-Installer-8.0U2b-23305546.x86_64.iso to test standalone license activation. The screen tells me that the license is valid but when I assign it nothing happens and the evaluation license stays in place. Can you think of any reason why this might be the case? I have tried to downgrade the license as well with no success.
It should work, this is something I've done before as well. As long as you're running ESXi 8.0U2B or later, the default license for new VCF SKU will work as long as you're using the right license key 🙂