MENU

search Search cancel Search

Counting Cores for VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation

and TiBs for vSAN

bookArticle ID: 313548 calendar_today Updated On: 03-17-2025

Products

VMware Cloud Foundation VMware vSAN VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Determining the Required Subscription Capacity for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and
VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF)

VCF and VVF subscription capacity is based on the total number of physical CPU cores of
each CPU on all the ESXi hosts associated with the VCF instances or vCenter Server that
customers plan to license with VCF or vSphere Foundation, respectively.

Customers must purchase a minimum license capacity of 16 cores per CPU.

Foundation Subscription Licensing = The VCF and VVF subscription capacity that requires
licensing is the greater of either:

1. Number of core licenses required per CPU × number of CPUs per ESXi host × number of
ESXi hosts
2. 16 cores x total number of CPUs in each ESXi host

Determining the Required Subscription Capacity for vSAN

 The vSAN capacity subscription capacity is based on the total raw physical storage (TiBs)
claimed by vSAN on all the ESXi hosts in each vSAN Cluster associated with the vCenter
Server or VCF instances that customers plan to license for vSAN.

vSAN Subscription capacity = total number of TiBs claimed by vSAN in each ESXi host x
number of ESXi hosts in each cluster

General Licensing Notes:

Each core requires a single license. These licenses do not come in bundles of 16.

16 cores is the minimum requirement to be purchased per CPU/physical processor.

Each TiB claimed by vSAN requires a single license. There are no license minimums.

The following tables describe how to determine the required subscription capacity for VCF, vSphere
Foundation, and vSAN.

VCF with vSAN Capacity Table

VCF with vSAN Capacity Licensing Notes:

VCF provides 1 TiB of vSAN entitlement for each VCF core purchased.

vSAN TiBs included in VCF can be aggregated and utilized across VCF core licenses only

Customers can purchase an additional quantity of vSAN capacity for the incremental storage
they may require for their VCF environment.

Subscript Subscript
# CP TiB Entitle
Cor TiB ion ion
of Us s/ d TiBs
es / s/ Capacity Capacity
Ho / Clu from Calculation
CP Ho Required Required
sts Ho ster Found
U st for VCF for vSAN
st ation
(Core) (TiB)
 VCF: Though the number of cores is 8
on each CPU, customers must
purchase 48 because the minimum
subscription capacity is 16 cores per
CPU and there is 1 CPU on each of
11.
3.8 the 3 ESXi hosts.
3 1 8 520 48 48 -36
40
vSAN: Customers will receive 48 TiBs
of vSAN, which is greater than the
capacity required in the cluster. There
are 36TiBs left over. No additional
capacity is needed.

VCF: Subscription capacity is the total

number of cores × number of CPUs ×
number of ESXi hosts.

1.8 5.5
3 2 16 96 96 -90
40 20 vSAN: Customers will receive 96 TiBs
of vSAN, which exceeds their desired
amount of capacity and there will be
90 TiBs left over. No additional
capacity is needed.

VCF: Subscription capacity is the total

number of cores × number of CPUs ×
49. 149 number of ESXi hosts.
3 2 16 92 .76 96 96 54
0 0 vSAN: Customers will receive 96 TiBs
of vSAN and need to purchase an
additional 54 TiBs of vSAN capacity.

VCF: Subscription capacity is the total

number of cores × number of CPUs ×
number of ESXi hosts.
61. 184
3 2 24 44 .32 144 144 41
vSAN: Customers will receive 144
0 0
TiBs of vSAN and need to purchase
an additional 41 TiBs of vSAN
capacity.
 VCF: Though the number of cores is 6
on each CPU, customers must
purchase 48 because the minimum
subscription capacity is 16 cores per
CPU and there is 1 CPU on each of
25.
8.3 the 3 ESXi hosts.
3 1 6 178 48 48 -22
93
vSAN: Customers will receive 48 TiBs
of vSAN, which exceeds their desired
amount of capacity and there will be
22 TiBs left over. No additional
capacity is needed.

VCF: Subscription capacity is the total

number of cores × number of CPUs ×
number of ESXi hosts.
17.
4.4
4 2 20 893 160 160 -142 vSAN: Customers will receive 160
73
TiBs of vSAN, which exceeds their
desired amount of capacity and there
will be 142 TiBs left over. No
additional capacity is needed.

VVF with vSAN Capacity Table

VVF with vSAN Capacity Licensing Notes:

VVF provides 0.25 TiB of vSAN entitlement for each VVF core purchased.

vSAN TiBs included in VVF can be aggregated and utilized across VVF core licenses only

Customers can purchase an additional quantity of vSAN capacity for the incremental storage
they may require for their VVF environment.
 Subscripti
CPU TiB Subscri
ESXi TiB on
s Cor s Entitle ption
Hosts s Capacity
per es per d TiBs Capacity
(in per Required
ESX per ESX from Require Calculation
vSAN Clu for
i CP i Found d for
clust ster vSphere
Hos U Hos ation vSAN
er) Foundatio
t t (TiB)
n (Core)

VVF: Though the number of cores

is 8 on each CPU, customers
must purchase 48 cores because
the minimum subscription
capacity is 16 cores per CPU and
there is 1 CPU on each of the 3
ESXi hosts.
3.84 11.5
3 1 8 12 48 0
0 20

vSAN: Customers will receive 12

TiBs of vSAN from VVF, which is
greater than the capacity required
in the cluster. There are 0 TiBs
left over. No additional capacity is
needed

VVF: Subscription capacity is the

total number of cores × number of
CPUs × number of ESXi hosts.

1.84 5.5
3 2 16 24 96 -18 vSAN: Customers will receive 24
0 20
TiBs of vSAN from VVF, which is
greater than the capacity required
in the cluster. There are 18 TiBs
left over. No additional capacity is
needed

3 2 16 49.9 149 24 96 126 VVF: Subscription capacity is the

20 .76 total number of cores × number of
0 CPUs × number of ESXi hosts.

vSAN: Customers will receive 24

TiBs of vSAN from VVF and
 needs to purchase an additional
126 TiBs of vSAN capacity

VVF: Subscription capacity is the

total number of cores × number of
CPUs × number of ESXi hosts.
184
61.4
3 2 24 .32 36 144 149
40 vSAN: Customers will receive 36
0
TiBs of vSAN from VVF and
needs to purchase an additional
149 TiBs of vSAN capacity

VVF: Though the number of cores

is 6 on each CPU, customers
must purchase 48 because the
minimum subscription capacity is
16 cores per CPU and there is 1
25.
8.39 CPU on each of the 3 ESXi
3 1 6 178 12 48 14
3 hosts.

vSAN: Customers will receive 12

TiBs of vSAN from VVF and
needs to purchase an additional
14 TiBs of vSAN capacity

VVF: Subscription capacity is the

total number of cores × number of
CPUs × number of ESXi hosts.

17.
4.47 vSAN: Customers will receive 40
4 2 20 893 40 160 -22
3 TiBs of vSAN from VVF, which is
greater than the capacity required
in the cluster. There are 22 TiBs
left over. No additional capacity is
needed
Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1

VMware vSAN 6.0.x

VMware vSAN 7.0.x

VMware vSAN 8.0.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Resolution

The number of core licenses (with a minimum of 16 cores per physical CPU) required for VCF and
VVF and TiB licenses required for vSAN can be identified in the methods below:

For small deployments and ESXi hosts not connected to a vCenter Server, core licensing can
be determined:

Foundation: Navigate to Host > Hardware > CPU Processors and check the value of Cores per
socket to determine how many cores your host has per CPU and calculate as described in the
Determining the Required Subscription Capacity section. (See Figure #1 for an example
screenshot of the UI).

For larger deployments: VMware has developed the attached license counting PowerCLI tool
that collects and consolidates information on the quantity of core licenses (with a minimum
of 16 cores per physical CPU) and TiB licenses required for each host connected to a vCenter
Server.

VCF and VVF require core licenses for all physical CPU cores on each CPU running the
software. In the event users disable physical CPU cores in the BIOS settings or other means, the
script may produce inaccurate results. As such, all physical CPU cores need to be activated on
each CPU when running the script.

TiB licensing for vSAN: There is no option to view the total raw physical storage capacity
claimed by the vSAN cluster in the product UI. The storage capacity displayed in the Capacity
Overview tab represents the available vSAN datastore capacity, not raw physical storage
capacity. You will need to run the license counting PowerCLI script to determine accurate TiB
license counts.
License Counting PowerCLI tool

Prerequisites:

VMware PowerCLI 13.3 or greater installed

Download and extract the attached script

Use:

1. Connect to vCenter Server:

Connect-VIServer -Server vCenter_Server
2. Import PowerCLI function:
Import-Module .\FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage.psm1
3. Run Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage function and specify deployment type to retrieve
results. By default, the script will iterate through all vSphere Clusters.
Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -DeploymentType VCF
Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -DeploymentType VVF

Here is an example output after running the PowerCLI tool.

VCF with vSAN Example

VVF with vSAN Example

The table below describes each of the columns or rows in the Host Information, Cluster Information,
and Total Required Licenses sections.

Name Description

Host Information

This column displays the name of the cluster. If there is no value in this
CLUSTER
column, this means the host is not part of the cluster.

VMHOST This column displays the host IP address.

NUM_CPU_SOCKETS This column displays the quantity of CPU sockets in the host.

NUM_CPU_CORES_PE This column displays the quantity of cores in each CPU socket in the
R_SOCKET host.

FOUNDATION_LICENSE This column displays the quantity of core licenses required for VCF or
_CORE_COUNT VVF licensing in the cluster.
 This column displays the quantity of TiB licenses received from the
vSAN_LICENSE_TIB_C
Foundation offer
OUNT
based on the quantity in FOUNDATION_LICENSE_CORE_COU

Cluster Information

CLUSTER This column displays the name of the cluster.

REQUIRED_VSAN_TIB_
This column displays the required TiB capacity for the cluster
CAPACITY

This figure displays the total number of VCF or VVF core licenses
Total Required
required and is
Licenses
calculated by taking the sum of FOUNDATION_LICENSE_CORE_COUNT

This figure displays the number of TiB licenses required for the cluster
(REQUIRED_VSAN_TIB_CAPACITY) after taking into account any TiB
entitlement
received from the Foundation offer (VSAN_LICENSE_TIB_COUNT).
• If the figure is negative or 0, this represents that the quantity of TiBs
Total Required vSAN
received from the Foundation offer is greater than or equal to the
Add-on Licenses
quantity of TiBs that require licenses. No additional licensing is
required and excess capacity can be aggregated.
• If the figure is positive, this represents that the quantity of TiBs that
require licenses is greater than the quantity of TiBs received from the
Foundation offer. Additional licensing is required.

To specify a specific vSphere Cluster, you can use the -ClusterName option:

Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -ClusterName “Cluster_Name” –DeploymentType VCF

To output the results into a CSV file, you can use the -Csv option:

Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -ClusterName Cluster_Name –DeploymentType VCF -CSV

To name the CSV file, you can use the -Filename option:

Get-FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage -ClusterName Cluster_Name –DeploymentType VCF -CSV -

Filename “name.csv”

*Note that you will receive two files. The one with -vsan appended includes the TiB count
information, while the other file includes the core count information.
Troubleshooting

The user may encounter error messages when using the license counting PowerCLI tool. The error is
due to an identified issue (ESX servers disconnected from vCenter, PDL devices in cluster, etc.) in the
environment, which may impact the number TiB licenses required. In these cases, the output from
the tool will provide an error message with the description and information to resolve the error
before rerunning the tool.

Below is an example of the output with an error message.

Related Information

Figure #1 – Core Count

Additional Information

Note: If when attempting to run this script you receive an error similar to: "cannot be loaded. The file
xxxx.psm1 is not digitally signed. You cannot run this script on the current system. For more
information abut running scripts and setting execution policy, see about_Execution_Policies

Run the following command to bypass the execution policy, then run the script again:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Bypass

Disclaimer: Broadcom reserves the right to periodically update licensing enablement tools, which
are provided for informational purposes only. Although great care has been taken to ensure the
accuracy of the licensing enablement tools, Broadcom does not accept any legal responsibility for
any actions taken based on the information contained herein and Broadcom makes no
representations or warranties of any kind.
 Attachments

FoundationCoreAndTiBUsage.psm1 get_app

Feedback

Was this article helpful?

thumb_up Yes
thumb_down No

Powered by

PRODUCTS