For most users, you probably have a large collection of vSphere license keys that have been provisioned over the years and keeping track of the product SKU, entitled features and capacity can be a challenge, especially if you are just looking at the raw 25 character license string.
While the Broadcom Support Portal (BSP) is recommended for all license management operations(view, split, merge, etc), did you know you could also use vCenter Server to help decode a particular license key?
Have you ever worked on something before and several years later, you have totally forgotten about it!? That is exactly the story behind this recent question on finding the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) version by using vCenter Server.
Obviously, the most logical place to look for the version of VCF is by using SDDC Manager which can be found within the VCF Workload Domain UI as shown in the screenshot below:
You can also get the VCF version by using the VCF API which can easily be retrieved with PowerVCF (PowerShell Module for VCF) using the Get-VCFManager function.
It was only after answering the question did I realized that you CAN also retrieve the VCF version by using vCenter Server and not only that, this method of retrieval was a solution that I had proposed and was implemented back in 2017!
I always love hearing about new and interesting hardware vendors from our VMware community, which is exactly how I came to learn about Protectli back in 2021 from fellow vExpert Trevor Smith. It was in 2021 where Trevor had shared with the vExpert Community that Protectli was developing a 10GbE hardware kit, which was really interesting since there was not many options for small form factor systems at that time that included 10GbE connectivity.
After following up with Protectcli in 2021, they confirmed a 10GbE kit was in the works but it was still in early design and development, so there was nothing to evaluate at the time. Fast forward to April 2024, I received a follow-up email asking if I would be interested in kicking the tires on their first 10GbE kits with their new Protectli Vault Pro 6600 series.
So here is your first look at the ESXi running on the new Protectli 10G Vault Pro!