technology – Welcome to VirtualRove.COM

VMware vCloud Foundation 9 – Licensing Part 1

December 18, 2025Roshan ChavanLeave a comment

VCF 9 adopts a streamlined, subscription-based licensing model that simplifies management and compliance:

Single license file replaces multiple component-specific keys (vCenter, ESXi, NSX, etc.)
Licenses are version-agnostic, eliminating version-based key mismatches
Managed centrally through VCF Operations and the VCF Business Services (VCFBS) portal
Designed for both connected mode (auto-reporting) and disconnected mode (manual uploads every 180 days)

Let’s dive deeper into it. I have freshly deployed VCF 9 environment.

After you deploy the env, it operates in evaluation mode for up to 90 days. During that period, you must license your environment.

Here are details for one of the esxi from the env,

As you can see, I have 2 physical sockets on this esxi and cores per socket are 4. That sums up to 8 CPU cores. However, when it comes to license calculation, it by default calculates 16 cores per socket even if I just have 4 cores per socket.

So, total number of licensed core on this esxi would be 32 cores.

I have 4 esxi hosts in this management workload domain cluster, so the total number of licensed cores would be (4*32) 128 cores.

Primary licenses apply only to ESXi hosts by count of physical CPU cores, with a 16-core minimum per CPU.

Moving to add-on license. This applies to vSAN Capacity in TiB’s. And the formula is, 1 TiB per licensed core. In my case, I will have 128 TiB allowed storage since I have 128 cores. For storage-heavy use cases, you need to purchase additional vSAN add-on capacity license.

Maintaining license compliance now includes periodic usage reporting:
Connected Mode (Internet Connection Required): VCF Operations sends usage data automatically each day; updates required every 180 days

Disconnected Mode (Dark Site): Manually download, upload, and activate new license files every 180 days

Failure to report can place hosts into expired status—preventing workloads until remedied. Basically, all hosts gets disconnected and you cannot start any vm. ☹

Let’s go to Ops> License Management> Registration

I will be demonstrating “Disconnected” mode for this blog.

On the vCenter, it shows evaluation mode,

Hosts show “Unlicensed”

NSX side,

That reminds me,

As per VMware Documentation, here

Starting with version 9.0, the licensing model is the same for VCF and vSphere Foundation. You assign licenses only to vCenter instances. The other product components, including ESXi hosts, that are connected to the licensed vCenter instances, are licensed automatically.

You no longer license individual components such as NSX, HCX, VCF Automation, and so on. Instead, for VCF and vSphere Foundation, you have a single license capacity provided for that product.

For example, when you purchase a subscription for VCF, with the license you receive and assign to a vCenter instance, all components connected to that vCenter instance are licensed automatically.

Back to “Registration”

Click on “Download Registration File”

Switch the site ID and make sure it is correct one and click on License,

I have vmug licenses which are already showing up on the portal with my vmug entitlement.

Back to VCF Home page on the portal, Click on “Upload registration file”

Upload the file that we downloaded earlier,

Next, Name the VCF Operations,

Next, Allocate licenses,

Next,
Download the generated licensed file and mark as completed,

We are done on this portal here,

Back to registration page shows this,

Let’s import the downloaded licensed file to our VCF operations in our environment,

Once imported, VCF Operations shows registered,

Status: Licensed
Mode: Disconnected
Next usage date: You need to report license usage before this date, or else all hosts will be disconnected.
VCF Operations name: shows Operations instance

We have licensed our VCF Operations instance. That’s a wrap for today! Stay tuned for the next blog—where we will talk about applying those licenses to vCenter and VSAN.

Are you looking out for compute resources (CPU / Memory / Storage) to practice VMware products…? If yes, then click here to know more about our Lab-as-a-Service (LaaS).

VMware vCloud Foundation 9 – Online Depot Configuration

December 13, 2025Roshan ChavanLeave a comment

To manage the lifecycle of VCF fleet level Management components such as VCF Operations, VCF Operations for networks, VCF Operations for logs, VCF Automation & VCF Identity Broker, you need to use VCF Operations fleet management appliance.
And before you can perform any of these operations, VCF Operations needs to be configured either for Online or Offline depot. This is the place where all downloaded binaries will be stored, which allows you to install, upgrade or patch any of the above-mentioned components.

Let’s dive into the lab,
I have freshly installed VCF 9.0 env. Plan is to install further components in the lab,

VCF Operations> Fleet Management> Lifecycle

As you can see “MANAGE” option is only available for VCF Operations. And rest needs to be installed. If I click on ADD on any of those,

It says, NO component binaries mapped.
Under binaries management, Depot is not configured.

Under “Depot Config”, we have 2 options

Online Depot: Use this option if the appliance has internet connectivity and you have obtained download token from support.broadcom.com portal.

Offline Depot: This option requires you to setup either web server which has access to internet or local server where you would upload all binaries manually to.

For this example, I will be configuring “Online Depot”
Click on “Configure” under online depot,

Click on the + sign on the right side,

Password Alias: Any friendly name.
Password: Paste the token from Broadcom portal. (will explain later in this article on how to generate one)
Confirm Password: Paste the same token again.
Rest two are option fields.

Select the “Download Token” that we just created,

Accept the certificate and OK.

Online depot is now active.

You would see all available products to download binaries for,

I selected “operations-logs” for testing and downloaded it,

You can monitor the status of the download under Tasks,

That’s it. You are good to download rest of the products.

To download the “Download Token”, login to https://support.broadcom.com

Select VCF from top right corner,

Scroll down to “Quick Links”

Click on “Generate Download Token”. Select your Site ID and Generate Token.
Note: You need to have proper permissions to access the site.

Check the official documentation here for any additional information,
Lifecycle Management of VCF Management Components

Hope that was helpful information. Keep learning.

Are you looking out for a lab to practice VMware products…? If yes, then click here to know more about our Lab-as-a-Service (LaaS).

VMware VCF – Delete failed tasks from SDDC Manager

December 5, 2025Roshan ChavanLeave a comment

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), deleting failed tasks is often necessary to avoid clutter in the SDDC Manager UI and free up resources. Failed tasks can also block further operations, especially credential rotation tasks.

Deleting failed tasks can help maintain a clean and organized SDDC Manager UI, making it easier to track ongoing and successful operations. Failed tasks can consume resources, potentially leading to performance issues or conflicts with other ongoing processes. Some failed tasks, like credential rotation failures, can block further credential operations until they are resolved or removed.

Deleting failed tasks is one of the prerequisites for rotating passwords via SDDC manager.

Let’s get into SDDC manager check failed tasks and delete them. This is typically done by using the SDDC Manager API or, if necessary, through manual SSH commands.