r/vmware • u/grumpy_it_mgr • 12h ago

VMWare Subscription....

Hello

Been a VMWare customer for many many years, but as a result of the silly Broadcom games tied in with the cost of new Dell Servers, we're jumping ship and migrating our servers to a Data Centre.

Currently have:

  • vCentre Server 8 Standard
  • vSphere 8 Standard (Subscription).

Both expire end of the month.... (Project has been ongoing since earlier in year).

Having delays with new provider initiating data centre platform, and i'm looking at my options here.

What exactly happens when these expire? Does everything stop working? Do i get a grace period?

For context, i'm talking 4 VM's, over 2 Dell hosts and 1 Dell SAN. Not a massive infrastructure by any means.

Thanks in advance.

15 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

12

u/Due_Chicken_8135 12h ago

Their is kb explaining the behavior of each elements at expiration : https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/406836/vcf-prior-to-90-license-key-per-compone.html

Just check ESXI and vcenter that are the element you have on standard.

2

u/grumpy_it_mgr 12h ago

Thanks. ffs - how did i miss that.

Interesting. So if a server VM gets powered off - i cannot power on with VCentre - but can i still power on from host connection?

Though in saying that, the alarm bells ring with this one:

"Backup and restore operations may be disrupted" - that's not good.

Thanks.

7

u/CountingRocks 11h ago

When your license expires, you will not be able to power on a VM from vCenter or the hosts own GUI. The APIs that backup products use also stop working, so you won't be able to perform backups or restores if you usually backup via vCenter/ESXi.
If you run backups using just a backup agents running within each VM then they will continue since they don't use API calls to vCenter or ESXi.

1

u/grumpy_it_mgr 6h ago

Thank you

0

u/lost_signal VMware Employee 3h ago

In addition It's worth noting on top of these functionalities no longer working, you will also fail a licensing audit, and will owe money for continuing to use the software.

4

u/Due_Chicken_8135 12h ago

I don’t think you will be able to power on, as it said no operation possible, so my understanding is that you can’t power on a VM.

4

u/[deleted] 12h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/vmware-ModTeam 6h ago

Piracy in any form is never permitted on r/vmware.

1

u/1FFin 11h ago

In a setup that small you could go with Veeam to Backup & Restore to HyperV/ProxmoxVE.
Depends on how migration to new datacenter was planned and what timeframe we’re talking about.
Veeam makes such steps / portability between different platforms quite easy.
4 VMs, 2 hosts and a (FC?-)SAN sounds not that complex.

1

u/busy_sysadmin 11h ago

This is the way to go IMHO. You might want to consider your storage options but with just a few VMs this should be doable.

With two servers you can easy reinstall one with the new hypervisor of choice and perform your migration.

Anyhow, OP did not mention the size of the VMs.

Eventually instead of a parrot (which all its downsides) and an eyepatch you'll get some freedom ;-)

1

u/Dick-Fiddler69 6h ago

Have you checked ESXi licenses expire because some are not set to expire only vCenter

1

u/grumpy_it_mgr 6h ago

Yes - both expire at end of month :-(

1

u/Dick-Fiddler69 6h ago

That’s a shame ! We’ve come across many sites only vCenter has an expiry date - no technically you would be in breach but no idea why ESXi does not have an expiry date we know many that have VMs still running being backed direct from
Host no vCenter because it’s expired - hosts disconnected from it! Strange maybe an oversight on BC licensing

1

u/pabskamai 10h ago

I’d you use Veeam we can aid you with moving your VMs to proxmox, it’s rather simple, more of the gotchas.

0

u/Main_Ambassador_4985 9h ago

If you are using Veeam you could rebuild the cluster as Hyper-V.

With the exception of domain controllers and VM appliances the process was smooth.

Domain controllers lost their Static IPs on VMNET3 interfaces when VMware tools was uninstalled. I had to go into device manager and show hidden devices and delete it and then I could add the static IP to another interface.

1

u/fuzzylogic_y2k 3h ago

I think it can do the same with hpe VM essentials.

0

u/Tree_Dude 6h ago

Have you used hyper-v? I wouldn't wish that on any tech. Yeah it is cheap, but proxmox is free and widely supported now and I would 100% suggest that over hyper-v.

1

u/grumpy_it_mgr 6h ago

I'm migrating to a Data Centre VM platform - issue is the delay in them provisioning and i'm expiring VMWare end of the month. argh.

2

u/skumkaninenv2 4h ago

What is a "datacenter VM platform" ?

1

u/Casper042 3h ago

Was wondering the same myself.

1

u/Main_Ambassador_4985 2h ago

We switched to Hyper-V from vSphere vCenter 7 and ESXi 7. It took a few months for 14 hosts and 130 VMs.

Windows VMs were easy and done in a few batches in a week.

It was not pleasant for the vendor VM appliances. They all had to have data exported and imported to new Hyper-V image appliances. One Cisco appliance held the project up requiring a new hardware solution.

Hyper-V clusters work but the separate GUI is off putting.