To continue using product functionality, you must assign appropriate licenses to assets in evaluation mode, or assets with expiring licenses. When you upgrade a license edition, combine, or split licenses in Customer Connect, you must assign the new licenses to assets. You can assign licenses that are already available, or create new licenses and assign them to the assets in a single workflow. Assets are vCenter Server systems, ESXi hosts, vSAN clusters, and other products that integrate with vSphere .

Prerequisites

  • To view and manage licenses in the vSphere environment, you must have the Global.Licenses privilege on the vCenter Server system, where the vSphere Web Client runs.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Web Client, select Administration, and under Licensing, select Licenses.
  2. Select the Assets tab.
  3. Select the vCenter Server systems, Hosts, Clusters, or Solutions tab.
  4. Use Shift+click to select the assets to license.
  5. Click Assign License.
  6. Select a licensing method.
    • Select an existing license and click OK.
    • Create a new license.
      1. Click the Create New License (Create license icon) icon.
      2. In the New Licenses dialog box, type or copy and paste a license key and click Next.
      3. On the Edit license names page, rename the new license as appropriate and click Next.
      4. Click Finish.
      5. In the Assign License dialog, select the newly-created license, and click OK.

Results

The license is assigned to the assets. Capacity from the license is allocated according to the license usage of the assets. For example, if you assign the license to 3 hosts with 4 CPUs each, the consumed license capacity is 12 CPUs.