About vCops 5.6 licensing

When working with vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 you have various licensing options. You can choose to use the free Foundation license, use a dedicated Standard/Advanced or Enteprise per VM license, or license vCenter Operations Manager as part of the vCloud Suite. The latter option will license vCops per CPU socket.

Assign a vCops 5.6 license

After installing vCops, the product will run in the free Foundation (unlicensed) mode. This will give you very limited functionality.

Assigning a license to vCops is achieved through the vSphere Client or vSphere Webclient. You first have to register your vCenter server in the vCenter Operations Manager, using the administrative URL: https://vcops.domain.local/admin. Add the vCenter Server(s) in the registration tab. After you have registered vCops, it will pop-up as a “solution asset” in the vSphere Client. You can now link a license key to the product:

My personal experience is that vCops automatically picks up a per-VM license. When using a vCloud Suite per-CPU license you have to restart the vCops service before the new license can be fully utilized. You can also execute the “vcops-admin license update” command on the UI VM. Use the admin interface (https://vcops.domain.local/admin) to check which license is issued to your vCops instance:

Note that there’s a difference between the License SKU (e.g. vCloud Suite Enterprise) and the actual license that is applied to the vCops appliance. This is normal behavior.

The vCops 5.6 release notes contain some valuable information that I’ve copied here. Read it for some additional tips and to prevent issues with licensing vCenter Operations. Especially when you’re running vCenter Server 4,x or 5.0 (icw vCops 5.6) you have to use a different license key for the product, which will be available in your licensing portal!

“Licensing vCenter Operations Manager 5.6

This paragraph contains important notes on vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 licensing.

• Important License keys for vCenter Operations Management Suite 5.6 with vCenter Server 5.0 or 4.1
  The vCenter Operations Management Suite 5.6 supports a Single Suite license key to enable functionality across all the suite components. To use this Suite license key with Operations Manager and Infrastructure navigator (VIN), you must have at least one instance of vCenter Server 5.1. To use vCenter Operations Manager and vCenter Infrastructure navigator components with vCenter Server versions 5.0 or 4.1, obtain the compatible license keys for these products from the text file located under each of the Product downloads:After you apply the license, you must restart vCenter Operations Manager service or run the command vcops-admin license update from the UI VM as admin to refresh the vCenter Operations Manager license.
  • vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 (Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise editions): https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/infrastructure_operations_management/vmware_vcenter_operations/5_6
  • vCenter Infrastructure Navigator (VIN) 2.0: https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/info?slug=infrastructure_operations_management/vmware_vcenter_infrastructure_navigator/2_0

  For vCenter Server version 5.1, the single Suite license keys for vCenter Operations 5.6 Standard/Advanced/Enterprise is supported across all the components in the suite.

• vCenter Operations Manager is licensed as an asset to the vCenter Server that it monitors. You must register vCenter Operations with a vCenter Server before you assign the 5.6 license. To register vCenter Operations Manager with a vCenter Server, open the vCenter Operations Manager Administration portal and follow the procedure described in the VMware vCenter Operations Manager Deployment and Configuration Guide.
• All license management tasks are performed in the vSphere Client. You cannot assign licenses in the vCenter Operations Manager Administration portal. Follow the instructions from the VMware vCenter Operations Manager Deployment and Configuration Guide to assign a license.
• You must reassign the 5.6 license each time you register vCenter Operations Manager with a vCenter Server. You create a new asset each time you register vCenter Operations Manager with a vCenter Server. Therefore, you must reassign the vCenter Operations Manager license each time you register with a vCenter Server, even if the vCenter Server has been registered before. For example, if you unregister the vCenter Operations Manager virtual appliance from a monitored vCenter Server and then register the appliance with the same vCenter Server, vCenter Operations Manager creates a new asset on this vCenter Server. However, the license remains associated with the vCenter Operations Manager asset that corresponds to the previous registration. Therefore, you must de-assign the license from the old asset and assign it to the latest created asset in order to access the vCenter Operations Manager user interface.
• vCenter Operations Manager operates in Foundation mode if no license key or an incompatible license key is applied. Assign the license key for the edition you purchased.”