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

Sujithra Govind
Tera Contributor

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!!

1 REPLY 1

MikeW0609686430
Giga Guru

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.