Hi vAdmins and consultants,
I’ve been talking with more and more customers lately who are eagerly making the adoption to VMware Cloud Foundation 9. Whether you’re planning a shiny new greenfield deployment or tackling a complex brownfield migration, thorough preparation is usually our mantra. We diligently verify hardware compatibility, draft a High-Level Design (HLD), and often dive deep into a detailed Low-Level Design (LLD).
We expect the groundwork to be flawless, right? We’ve dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’…
Yet, the moment of truth arrives during deployment, and BAM! You hit a wall: no access to your VCF 9 licenses.
It’s a frustrating scenario that can halt a well-planned rollout dead in its tracks. In this quick and punchy blog post, I’m here to give you the essential heads-up on how you can actually prepare to avoid this exact licensing snag. Let’s make sure your VCF 9 journey is smooth from start to finish!
Broadcom Support vs VCF Business Service Console
To start, it’s helpful to realize that your licenses stem from your subscription, which is part of your Enterprise Site ID. All legacy licenses are offered in the Broadcom Support Portal, and the Site administrator has access to all assets. You may have a personal account that is associated via this Site Admin for entitlements, including Broadcom Software Support, licenses, and downloads. With the introduction of VCF 9, licenses are managed on a separate website called the VCF Business Service Console.
If you are not a Site ID administrator, it is necessary that your personal account is also associated with the VCF 9 licenses on this website. For organizational purposes, licenses can even be split or merged
Add user account to VCF Business Service Console
To get a user added, the following two prerequisites are non-negotiable:
Role Membership: The user must be an active member of a defined role for the specific Site ID or tenant you are trying to grant access to.
An Active Broadcom Profile: The associated email address must already be part of an active profile on the Broadcom Support Portal.
Create a Tenant
The core purpose of the VCF Business Services Console is organization, and that starts with the concept of a Tenant. A tenant acts as a foundation for structuring your resources, managing entitlements, and applying role-based access control across your platform.
When your organization signs a commit contract, a default tenant is automatically created and associated with your Broadcom Support Portal Site ID. From there, you have the flexibility to create additional, user-defined tenants to further segment your licensing and resources (e.g., for different business units or projects).Who Can Create a Tenant?
To create a new tenant, you must have one of the following roles:
- Administrator role in the VCF Business Services Console.
- Tenant Administrator role on the site.
Good news: If you hold the User Administrator or Product Administrator role in the Broadcom Support Portal, you are automatically granted the Administrator role in the VCF Business Services Console.Step-by-Step: Creating Your New Tenant
Creating a new tenant is a straightforward process in the VCF Business Services Console:
- Access the Console: Open the VMware Cloud Foundation Business Services Console at vcf.broadcom.com and log in with your Broadcom Support Portal credentials.
- Navigate to Management: Go to Tenant Management.
- Initiate Creation: Click Create Tenant.
- Associate a Site: Select the Site ID you want to associate this new tenant with.
- Define the Tenant: Enter a clear Tenant Name and Description.
- Assign Administrators (Optional): You can optionally enter user emails to grant the
Tenant Administratorrole. Remember, these must already be site members of the Broadcom Support Portal. - Finalize: Review the summary and click Finish.
Once the tenant is created, the new organizational structure is ready. However, the original VCF 9 license resides in the default tenant. Your final crucial step is to split and share that license with the newly created tenant to make it operational.
License sharing in the console
The process is managed from the tenant that holds the license (usually the default tenant) and is quite straightforward:
- Access the Console: Log into the VCF Business Services Console.
- Navigate to Licensing: Go to License Management within the tenant that holds the original license (e.g., the default tenant).
- Select the Entitlement: Find your VCF 9 license entitlement. You will see the total quantity of the license available.
- Initiate the Split: Select the option to Split and Share.
- Define the Transfer:
- Destination Tenant: Select the name of the new tenant you want to share the license with (e.g., Tenant A or Tenant B).
- Quantity to Split: Enter the exact quantity of the license (e.g., the number of cores or units) you wish to transfer to the destination tenant.
- Confirm: Review the details. Once confirmed, the system deducts the quantity from the source tenant and permanently assigns it to the destination tenant.
Final Thought
The VCF Business Services Console is designed to provide you with a structured and streamlined experience for both license management and detailed usage reporting. I hope this post has been a valuable guide as you navigate the VCF 9 landscape and ensures a successful implementation!
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Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed in this blog are solely my own and should be treated as personal opinions. This content does not hold any legal or authoritative standing.