Oracle Cloud VMware Solution (OCVS) now supports Bring Your Own License (BYOL) – Oracle is pleased to announce general availability (GA) of BYOL for OCVS. This update reflects the continued evolution of Oracle’s partnership with Broadcom and aligns OCVS with Broadcom’s VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) license portability (BYOL) model, so customers can continue running VMware workloads on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) with a clear, consistent licensing approach.

With BYOL GA, customers can use eligible VMware VCF subscription entitlements procured directly from Broadcom (or authorized partners) when deploying and scaling OCVS environments on OCI.

BYOL Model and Licensing Changes

BYOL transition introduces a simplified billing model for OCVS. Infrastructure consumption is now billed based on OCI bare metal compute pricing, while VMware licensing is procured and managed separately by customers under the BYOL model.

As part of this transition, Oracle will discontinue new long-term license-included OCVS SKUs effective March 22, 2026, including monthly, 1-year, and 3-year license-included options. Existing environments deployed using license-included hosts will continue operating under their current commitment terms until transitioned to BYOL or those commitments expire, after which they must transition to BYOL.

Timeline for transition License Included Deployments

As previously announced in January 25, 2026 the existing license-included model will continue to be available during a defined period as follows:

After these dates, all new OCVS capacity must be provisioned using the BYOL model.

For detailed transition timelines and guidance for existing environments, refer to the OCVS BYOL transition guidance blog.

Introducing License Management for OCVS

To support BYOL-based deployments, OCVS now includes License Management, enabling customers to prepare entitlements before provisioning.

With License Management, customers can:

How to register VCF in OCVS
how to allocate BYOL licesne capacity in region

How it works:

  • Licenses are registered in the tenancy’s home region
  • Customers create regional allocations in the OCI region where OCVS resources will be deployed
  • Allocations are then selectable during provisioning and scale-out workflow

This model enables customers to distribute VMware license capacity across multiple OCI regions while maintaining a centralized location for license management and usage visibility.

Refer to the official documentation to understand how to register your VCF BYOL Entitlements and create License Allocations.

BYOL integrated into OCVS provisioning

With BYOL GA, OCVS workflows now support selecting BYOL during:

Once licenses are registered and allocations are created, they become available directly within the OCVS provisioning workflows.

Customers deploying or scaling VMware environments in OCI can select the appropriate VCF license allocation. You’ll see a BYOL option in the Pricing Interval Commitment section, and you’ll select the VCF license allocation to apply to the resources being created.

Creating a new SDDC

As seen below in the Create SDDC workflow, we now have a License Model section with an option of selecting “Bring Your Own License”.

New License Model under "Pricing interval-Commitment" to select BYOL type.during new SDDC creation

Adding a workload cluster

When creating a cluster during the Create SDDC or Add a Workload cluster workflow, you will see the option to select the previously created VCF License Allocations.

New License Model under "Pricing interval-Commitment" to select BYOL type during cluster creation

Creating an ESXi host

Similar to add a workload cluster, you will have a choice to provision a new ESXi host using “Bring Your Own License”.

New License Model under "Pricing interval-Commitment" to select BYOL type.during ESXi creation

This integration allows BYOL licensing to be incorporated naturally into existing OCVS deployment and scaling workflows.

When an SDDC is created using the BYOL model, all subsequent scale-out operations within that SDDC must also use BYOL.

Visibility into BYOL: Know which hosts are BYOL vs license-included

OCVS also provides enhanced visibility into how VMware licenses are being used within an environment and offers clear, host-level visibility::

  • In the OCVS cluster view, a new column indicates the licensing model per ESXi host:
    • Bring Your Own License
    • License-Included
  • In License Management, customers can view details for each registered license, including:
    • Total license units
    • Available units
    • Validity dates
    • Allocated units
    • Allocation usage by region
License Management and maintenance option for customer

If a registered license is divided into multiple allocations across regions, the Allocations view provides visibility into where license capacity is currently being consumed.

Supporting existing environments

Existing OCVS environments can also begin adopting the BYOL model.

Customers running license-included ESXi hosts in an SDDC can transition those hosts to BYOL by associating them with an appropriate VCF license allocation. This provides flexibility for organizations that want to begin using their Broadcom VCF entitlements while continuing to operate existing environments.

Transitioning existing license Included host to BYOL

Looking Ahead

With the general availability of BYOL support in Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, customers can now deploy and scale VMware workloads on OCI using their eligible VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) entitlements.

The operating model of OCVS remains unchanged. OCVS continues to provide a fully customer-managed VMware environment, giving customers full administrative control of their VMware stack while leveraging the performance, scalability, and reliability of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

As customers adopt the BYOL model, it becomes their responsibility to manage and maintain appropriate VMware entitlements for the OCVS resources they deploy. This includes transitioning hosts from the license-included model as commitments expire and ensuring that BYOL-based deployments are associated with valid VMware VCF license allocations.

Customers should also follow Broadcom’s licensing policies and compliance requirements when managing and consuming VMware entitlements on OCVS.

By combining this flexible licensing model with the operational consistency of VMware and the global scale of OCI, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution continues to provide customers with a powerful platform for running VMware workloads in the cloud while maintaining full control of their environments.

Learn More

For questions or feedback regarding the BYOL transition, contact: oci_ocvs_product_ww_grp@oracle.com