VMware Aria Operations provides a centralized plane for license management and consumption visibility. Starting with VMware Aria Operations 8.18, you can manage and monitor the consumption of all available licenses from the registered vCenter systems in VMware Aria Operations.

You can add new VMware Cloud Foundation Solution License keys, VMware vSphere Foundation Solution License keys, or vSAN per TiB license keys and add them to registered vCenter systems in VMware Aria Operations. For more information, see Managing Licenses. You can also view the consumption data and usage trends of the licenses available in registered vCenter systems. For more information, see License Usage Analytics.

vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for vSphere Foundation entitles VMware Aria Operations to the advanced edition, while vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for VCF entitles VMware Aria Operations to the enterprise edition.

All the older VMware Aria Operations license types and license-related functionalities are also valid and supported. For more information, see VMware Aria Operations License Keys.

Note: Starting with VMware Aria Operations 8.16, license consumption for VMware Aria Operations is not required for entitled setups, the license consumption is tracked against your vCenter systems.

A newly deployed VMware Aria Operations works in evaluation mode for 60 days if no valid entitlement is available.

VMware Aria Operations always gives precedence to vCenter cloud accounts with vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for vSphere Foundation or vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for VCF licenses, unless a higher edition VMware Aria Operations license is available.

The entitlement is checked every time a new vCenter cloud account is added. For details on how to configure the vCenter cloud account, see Configure a vCenter Server Cloud Account in VMware Aria Operations.

If the entitlement expires or if VMware Aria Operations is unable to fetch valid entitlement from the connected vCenter systems, the product enters a 90 day grace period. The grace period does not restrict any of the functionalities, but you must add a valid license or entitlement before the grace period ends. After the grace period ends, if there is a valid VMware Aria Operations license available, the product continues to work with the license. If VMware Aria Operations cannot find any valid license or entitlement at the end of the grace period, it enters the restricted mode. In the restricted mode, you can only access the following pages:
  • Subscriptions: License Management and Legacy Licenses
  • Administration: Integrations and Cloud Proxies
Note: Data collection does not stop in the restricted mode.
To exit the restricted mode, perform any one of the following actions:
  • Add a vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for vSphere Foundation or a vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for VCF license from the Subscriptions > License Management page or enter a valid VMware Aria Operations license key from the Subscriptions > Legacy Licenses page.
    Note: After you add a valid license on the License Management page, you must also add the license to a vCenter system and assign it to the vCenter asset by using the vSphere client. VMware Aria Operations can then fetch the valid entitlement and work with the available edition.
  • Add a new entitled vCenter cloud account from Administration > Integrations or use the suite API.
  • Add a valid license to a registered vCenter system using the vSphere client.

After a valid license or entitlement is available, VMware Aria Operations exits the restricted mode and functions as per the edition available with the license or entitlement.