Managing Esx/Esxi And Vcenter Server Licenses - VMware ESX 4.0 - INSTALLATION GUIDE UPDATE 1 Installation Manual

Managing ESX/ESXi and vCenter
Server Licenses
License reporting and management are centralized.
All product licenses are encapsulated in 25-character license keys that you can manage and monitor from
vCenter Server.
Licensing is applicable to ESX/ESXi hosts, vCenter Server, and solutions. However, solutions licensing
management is specific to the solution. For solutions, licensing can be based on processors, asset instances,
virtual machines, and so on. Therefore, the licensing for a solution such as VMware vCenter Site Recovery
Manager might differ entirely from the licensing of another solution. For information about licensing a specific
solution, see the documentation for that solution.
In terms of licensing hosts, if you upgrade all your hosts, you no longer need a license server or host-based
license files.
Each host requires a license and each vCenter Server instance requires a license. You cannot assign multiple
license keys to a host or to a vCenter Server system. You can license multiple hosts with one license key if the
key has enough capacity for more than one host. Likewise, you can license multiple vCenter Server instances
with one license key if the key has a capacity greater than one and you can license multiple solutions with one
license key if the key has a capacity greater than one. When you apply a minor upgrade or patch the ESX/ESXi
or vCenter Server software, you do not need to replace the existing license key with a new one.
If you upgrade the edition of the license (for example, from standard to enterprise), you must replace the
existing license key in the inventory with a new upgraded license key.
This chapter includes the following topics:
"About License Key Capacity,"
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"About vSphere and vCenter Server License Keys,"
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"About Using a License Server to Manage ESX 3.x/ESXi 3.5 Hosts,"
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"About the License Portal,"
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"About License Inventories,"
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"Controlling License Permissions,"
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"View License Information,"
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"Add a License Key to the License Inventory and Assign It to an Asset,"
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"Add Multiple License Keys to the License Inventory,"
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"Assign a License Key to Multiple Assets,"
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"Export Report Data,"
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"License a Host Without vCenter Server,"
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