With the End of General Support for Usage Meter 3.6.1 behind us, partners are now required to use Usage Meter 4.X. At the time of this writing, the only version supported for use is Usage Meter 4.4 with version 4.5 to be released within a month.
In an effort to maintain the service and deliver on features necessary, we are cleaning up some of the older components as well as changing the support / interop policies going forward.
What is Changing?
Here is the Short Version:
- Usage Meter 3.6.1 no longer supported for Automatic Reporting
- Usage Meter 4.1 and 4.2 will soon no longer be supported for processing or reporting
- Changes to Usage Meter Support Policy and Lifecycle
Let’s dive into each topic.
Usage Meter 3.6.1 No Longer Auto-Reported to Commerce Portal
This is part of the cleanup. In an effort to cleanup some older components of Usage Insight, VMware will no longer register, aggregate, or automatically report monthly usage for UM 3.6.1 to Commerce Portal.
How does this affect partners still using 3.6.1?
It doesn’t really. Usage Meter 3.6.1 can still generate Bundle based reports and partners can manually aggregate the details to submit their monthly billing order on Commerce Portal. Though these partners are not completely unaffected. In May 2022, the Commerce Portal will remove the Bundle SKU’s completely. At which point Usage Meter 3.6.1 will no longer be compatible with the Monthly Billing Order SKU’s.
What should partners do?
The following steps are recommended to be done immediately. Do not wait, do not delay. Performt
- Download the Usage Meter 4.4 appliance
- Deploy a new Usage Meter 4.4 appliance to replace 3.6.1
- Register the Usage Meter 4.4 in Test Mode first
- Either manually connect to all of your products, or use the migration script to register all of the same products to the new Usage Meter.
- The following month, change the Usage Meter 4.4 registration to Production Mode.
Usage Meter 4.1/4.2 No Longer Supported
This is technically considered similar cleanup. We can no longer support management, processing and reporting of Usage Meter 4.1 and 4.2. This processing will stop on December 5th, 2021.
How does this affect partners still using 4.1 or 4.2?
For Usage Meter 4.X, all processing and report generation is done in the cloud. Partners still running UM 4.1 or 4.2 will soon no longer be able to have a report generated at all. If no reports can be generated, then nothing will be sent to Commerce Portal.
What should partners do?
Usage Meter 4.X has the ability to be upgraded without deploying a whole new appliance. So instead of partners focusing on if a Usage Meter version will change their bill, the appliance is only focused on if it can meter the product or feature. This reduces the potential for a Usage Meter version to change your bill only if the Usage Meter detects a new feature it had not been able to in past. You do not need to re-register the Usage Meter agent or run two side-by-side for a month.
Partners running Usage Meter 4.1 or 4.2 should immediately perform the in-place upgrade.
- Download the Usage Meter 4.4 in-place upgrade ISO
- Follow these instructions to perform the upgrade
- For UM 4.1 users, make sure to re-accept all certificates once done
- Thats it! Literally. And it’s going to get easier in the future.
Changes to Usage Meter Support Policy & Lifecycle
Starting with Usage Meter 4.3 which has gone End of General Support this month, VMware will now list an End of Technical Guidance date for each version. Why is this news? Because when a Usage Meter version reaches End of Technical Guidance, it will no longer be processed by Usage Insight. VMware’s standard of 1 year after End of General Support will mark the date that a Usage Meter will no longer be viable for report generation.
How does this affect partners today?
Partners on Usage Meter 4.1 and 4.2 will experience this as mentioned above, but Usage Meter 4.3 will no longer be processed starting November 2022. Again, thanks to in-place upgrades a partner can upgrade to Usage Meter 4.4 or later, and it does not impact billing unless there are new features being metered.
What should partners do?
If a partner is running Usage Meter 4.3, they should upgrade to 4.4 or 4.5 as soon as they can. The 1 year count down has already started. To reiterate the steps for partners running 4.1 and 4.2:
- Download the Usage Meter 4.4 in-place upgrade ISO
- Follow these instructions to perform the upgrade
- Thats it! Literally. And it’s going to get easier in the future.
That is all there is to this update. If you need any additional assistance or guidance, take a look at the following options:
- Join Product Managers, Product Engineers, Solutions Architects, and even other partners on the Cloud Provider slack: Join Here
- Feature requests? Send us a note here: Email Us
- Billing support? Open a ticket on Commerce Portal: How to Video
- Technical support for Usage Meter? Open a support ticket: How to Video
