6.7

For example, suppose that your environment consists of two Platform Services Controllers that are
connected to four vCenter Server systems each, and every vCenter Server system has 10 hosts
connected to it. The License Service stores information about the license assignments and uses for all
eight vCenter Server systems, and the 80 hosts that are connected to those systems. The License
Service also lets you manage the licensing for all eight vCenter Server systems and the 80 hosts that are
connected to them through the vSphere Web Client.
Licensing for Environments with vCenter Server Systems
6.0 and Later, and 5.5
If your vSphere 6.0 or later environment consists of vCenter Server 6.0 or later, and 5.5 systems, consider
the differences in the license management and reporting between vSphere 6.0 and later, and vSphere
5.5.
The License Service in vSphere 6.0 and later manages the licensing data for all ESXi hosts, vSAN
clusters, and solutions that are associated with the vCenter Server 6.0 and later systems in the vSphere
environment. However, every standalone vCenter Server 5.5 system manages the licensing data only for
the hosts, solutions, and vSAN clusters that are associated with that system. Licensing data for linked
vCenter Server 5.5 systems is replicated only for the vCenter Server 5.5 systems in the group.
Due to the architectural changes in vSphere 6.0 and later, you can either manage the licensing data for all
assets that are associated with all vCenter Server 6.0 and later systems in vSphere, or manage the
licensing data for individual vCenter Server 5.5 systems or a group of linked vCenter Server 5.5 systems.
The licensing interfaces in the vSphere Client 6.7 and the vSphere Web Client 6.0 and later allow you to
select between all vCenter Server 6.0 and later systems and vCenter Server 5.5 systems.
Licensing for Products in vSphere
ESXi hosts, vCenter Server, and vSAN clusters are licensed differently. To apply their licensing models
correctly, you must understand how the associated assets consume license capacity. You must also
understand how the evaluation period for each product works, what happens when a product license
expires, and so on.
Licensing for ESXi Hosts
ESXi hosts are licensed with vSphere licenses. Each vSphere license has a certain CPU capacity that
you can use to license multiple physical CPUs on ESXi hosts. When you assign a vSphere license to a
host, the amount of CPU capacity consumed equals the number of physical CPUs in the host. vSphere
Desktop that is intended for VDI environments is licensed on per virtual machine basis.
To license an ESXi host, you must assign it a vSphere license that meets the following prerequisites:
n
The license must have sufficient CPU capacity to license all physical CPUs on the host. For example,
to license two ESXi hosts that have four CPUs each, you need a vSphere license with a minimum
capacity of 8 CPUs to the hosts.
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