I see quite a bit of confusion about this internally and with customers, so I figured I would write a quick blog post on the subject. Starting with HCX 4.9, you are able to active HCX Enterprise services using VCF Solution Licensing.
To save you a little bit of reading, here is the TL;DR:
- HCX must be 4.9 or above
- VCF must be 5.1.1 or later
- VCF must be activated/configured with a VCF Solution Key (and not individual product keys). This will appear as ‘VMware vSphere 8 Enterprise Plus for VCF (Supports vCenter Server 8.0U2b and above)’ in your Broadcom Portal
If the above 3 are not met, you can only active HCX in one of two ways:
- Use an NSX Enterprise Plus key
- Use a Hyperscaler provided activation key
Using an NSX Ent Plus key will activate HCX Advanced only. To activate HCX Enterprise, you need a HCX Enterprise key, however this SKU is no longer available. Which means if you haven’t previously purchased it and if you want HCX Enterprise, you must use the VCF Solution key, or activate it using a Hyperscaler provided key which also grants HCX Enterprise. Most (if not all) Hyperscaler activation keys will activate HCX Enterprise.
I’ll link the relevant documentation below, but essentially the way it works is that when you deploy HCX, it does a lookup of how vCenter is licensed and if it is with a VCF Solution key, it will automatically activate HCX Enterprise and it won’t ask for an activation key, which is pretty neat. If vCenter is not licensed with a VCF Solution key, or for whatever reason the lookup fails, it will ask for an activation key.
All of this is part of VMware by Broadcom’s work towards simplifying the licensing of products.
Hopefully this helps to clarify.
References:
VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation Solution License Key:
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/319282/vmware-cloud-foundation-and-vsphere-foun.html
VMware HCX 4.9 Release Notes:
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-HCX/4.9/rn/vmware-hcx-49-release-notes/index.html
HCX Activation and Licensing:
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-HCX/4.9/hcx-user-guide/GUID-9E3F1129-754C-4A88-8CD8-8530374AC612.html