3.3 Licensing the ESXi 5.5 Hypervisor

NetIQ subscribes to a VMware Volume Licensing agreement, allowing us to pre-install ESXi 5.5 on the Forge Management VM without activating a license for the installation. As the OEM reseller and NetIQ partner, you need to activate the vSphere OEM license as you prepare each Forge Appliance for shipping.

Obtaining the vSphere Product Key

To obtain the OEM Product Keys:

  1. Contact VMware Support, using one of regional telephone numbers listed on its Support Contacts page.

  2. Advise the support representative of the VMware Customer number for NetIQ (supplied in the Forge Appliance Rebuild Kit) and that you are activating a license for PlateSpin Forge.

    The representative will provide an ESXi 5.5 OEM product key.

  3. Write down the ESXi 5.5 OEM product key for later use.

Activating the ESXi 5.5 License

To activate the ESXi 5.5 license for the Forge Management VM:

  1. In the tree view of the vSphere client, select the ESXi server node, click the Configuration tab, then click Licensed Features.

  2. In the upper right corner of the client interface, click Edit and select Assign a new license key to this host.

  3. In the Assign License dialog, enter your license key and click OK.

  4. Click OK and exit the vSphere Client program.