by William Lam // 66 Comments
With the release of vSphere 8.0 Update 3 now generally available (release notes and direct download links below):
I know the first question I will get (which I already have already :P) is what about updated versions of the Nested ESXi Virtual Appliance and USB Network Native Driver for ESXi? 😅
by William Lam // 5 Comments
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.
by William Lam // 2 Comments
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?