Plain Virtualization

Decided to write a post on this as I receive just too times the questions from different customers due to the confusion. Say if you are using a free edition of the vSphere Hypervisor or you are on any purhcased editions of vSphere, and you like to licensed it or upgrade to the next edition.  Now you have the new license key what do you do? This is the most asked question: 1. Do I need to reinstall the ESXi server applying a new license key? Answer is No.  You just need to either go to the Hypervisor via the vSphere client, select the host and on the right under the Configuration Tab and choose Licensed Features.  Click on Edit and enter your serial key.  Alternative if  you have a vCenter, just select Home>Administration>Licensing and choose Manage vSphere Licenses.  The features of the edition you have purchased or licensed will be activated and shown. 2. Can vSphere 5.0 serial keys work in vSphere 5.1? Answer is Yes.  All vSphere...

So you have been running the evaluation license.  The evaluation period would be 60 days for ESXi server and 30 days for vCenter. Say you like to run on evaluation while getting your license and you couldn't get the license in time and 30 days has reached and your vCenter is expired. What happens after the evaluation period? I did a test and these are my findings. vCenter remain to be operational. All features are still enabled. You will receive a notice below once in awhile. Any action that result in disconnection of the ESXi servers will not be able to join back to vCenter e.g. reboot of ESXi server.  A direct connection using vSphere client is required to manage the VMs on the host. Any changes in configuration will not be possible and can cause any licensed functions not to function. Powered Off VMs cannot be power on.  Refer to KB . In summary, after license expired, all operations remains as it is and no changes even with simple things like power on ...