VMware vSphere / vCenter Subscription Licensing & Reconciliation Behaviour in SAM Pro

Sujithra Govind — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 12:51:08 GMT

Hi All,

In SAM Pro, how are VMware subscription products handled during reconciliation?

For vSphere per-core subscription entitlements, downgrade rights exist (e.g., vSphere 8 → vSphere 7), but downgraded usage is not reconciled and instead shows under Install Requires Action – No applicable entitlement. Is this expected for subscription license types?
For vSphere Foundation bundled subscriptions, only one ESXi host is considered during reconciliation even when usage exists on multiple normalized hosts, leading to non-compliance. Is this due to parent–child bundle roll-up logic or a known limitation?
When a valid entitlement exists but cannot be reconciled due to bundle or metric qualification, why is usage shown under Install Requires Action instead of Unlicensed Installs?
For vCenter Server, entitlements with Per Application Instance metric show a health warning indicating SaaS – User Subscription License metric. Is this a content-level metric classification issue for VMware subscription products?
Finally, can ServiceNow confirm whether vSphere and vCenter Server are classified as on-prem products, and whether SaaS/subscription tagging in SAM Pro is related only to licensing models rather than deployment type?

Thanks in Advance!!

Re: VMware vSphere / vCenter Subscription Licensing & Reconciliation Behaviour in SAM Pro

MikeW0609686430 — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:28:35 GMT

For vSphere (stand-alone) entitlements, please confirm that you have it set up as follows:

Agreement Type = Enterprise Agreement

License Type = Subscription

License Metric = Per Core, Per Application Instance, etc.

For VCF, you may need to go into the software model and change the metric attribute so that Minimum cores per processor = 16.

The license metric drives license compliance calculations. If you want to include/exclude on-prem, then you would need to set up a sw install condition - typically I use the DNS domain as the filter.

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VMware vSphere / vCenter Subscription Licensing & Reconciliation Behaviour in SAM Pro

Re: VMware vSphere / vCenter Subscription Licensing & Reconciliation Behaviour in SAM Pro