At The SAM Club we often come across interesting software licensing issues. The latest one involves VMware and licenses purchased via Dell who own VMware.
The client purchased VMware licenses via Dell for a country/territory outside of the European Economic Area. Dell were aware of the location of use and referenced this in their email with the quote. The quote and the subsequent invoice were addressed to the client’s UK address.
The problem arises due to VMware’s EULA specifying in its section 13.18 that the Territory” in which you may install the software is defined as “the country or countries in which you have been invoiced……”
(Although, “If the Territory for your Software includes any European Economic Area member states or the United Kingdom, you may deploy that Software throughout the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom”.)
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/downloads/eula/universal_eula.pdf
When redeeming the PAC (Partner Activation Code*) for these licenses their UK address was used by the client. Therefore, in VMware’s eyes, these licenses were for the UK/Europe only.
As Dell own VMware, you would have thought that Dell would have advised the client better in this situation but they failed the client in this instance.
Even more interesting with this case, the client passed a VMware compliance review for these licenses in 2020 with the licenses deployed in the relevant country outside of Europe! How did this happen? This is interesting as the country the licenses are installed in is the Cayman Islands. The address for the entity showed ‘Cayman Islands, United Kingdom’ and the Cayman Islands is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom which is most probably how this one got through the compliance review.
The process to correct this is to work with VMware’s License Assignment and Transfer Team (LATF) and provide the correct entity details for the license to be transferred. There are a number of questions to go through and to discuss the reasons e.g. Infrastructure restructure, which takes time and forms to be completed. But it is worth doing this to ensure the licenses are documented for the right territory/region/country. During a compliance review you wouldn’t be allowed to do this – as it is after the fact.
It is worth noting that the VMware system doesn’t prevent a license purchased in Hong Kong, for example, and invoiced to a Hong Kong address being registered via the PAC to a UK address. The license wouldn’t be compliant to be used in the UK or Europe due to the country of purchase and the invoice address. The address registered via the PAC would only allow for this license to have the SnS renewed in the UK/Europe in future, which is not allowed, and would be a compliance issue. However, it is possible via VMware Support to correct this and update the address to the one on the invoice for the original purchase (copy of invoice needs to be provided).
When it comes to VMware licensing, please be careful with the country of purchase, the country the software is to be deployed in and the country where the SnS is being renewed.
Finally with multi countries/territories being used it is allowable for all the VMware licenses to be held within the same VMware account. However, it is vitally important from a control process to ensure the licenses are documented and kept within defined appropriately named folder structures within your VMware portal. This will help prevent licenses being merged incorrectly in the future and to ensure they are continued to be used in the correct locations.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like an independent review of your VMware license estate and portal.
* See How to activate VMware Partner Activation Codes (PAC) (2014281))
