There have been a number of queries recently in relation to licensing of the VSA with the 5.1 release. The VSA has a number of different licensing models depending on how it was obtained. In many cases, if you check your vSphere licenses via the vCenter License Administration view, you might observe that the VSA asset is reported as not licensed, in evaluation or expired.
So where do you check if you have a valid license for the VSA?As per KB article 2040217, the fact that the license is not reported in the ‘Manage vSphere Licenses’ in vCenter is a known issue and is cosmetic. This can be safely ignored if a valid license entitling the user to use the vSphere Storage Appliance is applied.
To verify the license that VSA is actually using, click on the ‘about‘ dialog in VSA manager. This is located in the lower right hand corner of the VSA Manager view, and is a link detailing the VSA version (vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.1.0 as shown below). Click on it, and it will bring up details of the VSA, including the licensing details, shown here:
As you can see, this VSA is licensed for Essentials Plus. Therefore, you should base your VSA licensing on what the VSA Manager tells you and not what vCenter tells you.
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To verify the license that VSA is actually using, click on the ‘about‘ dialog in VSA manager. This is located in the lower right hand corner of the VSA Manager view, and is a link detailing the VSA version (vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.1.0 as shown below). Click on it, and it will bring up details of the VSA, including the licensing details, shown here:
As you can see, this VSA is licensed for Essentials Plus. Therefore, you should base your VSA licensing on what the VSA Manager tells you and not what vCenter tells you.
