---
name: vmwaresolutions-vs_orderinginstances-sys
title: General information
description: As of 17 July 2025, new automated installations of Red Hat® OpenShift® for VMware® are no longer available for new or existing deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated instances. You can still use or delete your existing Red Hat OpenShift for VMware automated installations until 16 July 2026. The service will no longer be available from 17 July 2026.
last-updated: 2025-10-24
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# General information
{: #vs_orderinginstances-sys-settings}

As of 17 July 2025, new automated installations of Red Hat® OpenShift® for VMware® are no longer available for new or existing deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated instances. You can still use or delete your existing Red Hat OpenShift for VMware automated installations until 16 July 2026. The service will no longer be available from 17 July 2026.
{: deprecated}

The information that you specify for a new VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Flexible instance is based on an instance configuration template.

## VMware vSphere version
{: #vs_orderinginstance-vsphere-license}

VMware vSphere® Enterprise Plus 8 is selected by default. When you use vSphere 8, consider the following information:
* For new instances, you can use only VMware vCenter Server® 8.
* vSAN storage is not supported with vSphere 8.
* BYOL users can also select a vSphere version for the instance.

## Bring Your Own License
{: #vs_orderinginstance-byol}

Bring Your Own License (BYOL) is no longer supported except for migrations or upgrades of existing BYOL clusters. Add a host to a BYOL cluster only if you are upgrading or migrating an existing BYOL cluster.
{: attention}

If you are a Bring Your Own License (BYOL) user, toggle the **BYOL** switch to **Enabled**.

## VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus license key
{: #vs_orderinginstance-vsphere-license-key}

You must provide a single vSphere® Enterprise Plus edition license key with sufficient capacity for your instance configuration.

## Instance name
{: #vs_orderinginstances-instance-name}

The instance name is set to **vss-_xx_** by default, where _xx_ represents two randomly generated alphabetic characters.

You can also specify an instance name that meets the following requirements:
* Only lowercase alphabetic, numeric, and hyphen (-) characters are allowed.
* The instance name must start with a lowercase alphabetic character.
* The instance name must end with a lowercase alphabetic or numeric character.
* The maximum length of the instance name is 10 characters.
* The instance name must be unique within your account.

## Resource group
{: #vs_orderinginstance-resource-group}

If **No resource group available** is displayed in this field, you currently do not have permissions to any resource group in this account. Contact the account owner to be assigned an Editor or Administrator role on a resource group in the account. For more information, see [IBM Cloud IAM roles](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/iam?topic=iam-userroles&format=markdown).
{: note}

Click **Browse configurations** to open the configuration manager side pane. Here, you can choose a configuration from the list of saved templates to update it and then save it as a new configuration template.

## Instance configuration name
{: #vs_orderinginstance-instance-config}

If you do not see any configurations in the list, then you do not have any saved templates and might want to create one. To create a configuration, first specify the settings for your instance as a configuration template without placing an order. To save the settings, click **Save configuration** on the **Summary** pane.

Select whether to order a new primary instance or a secondary instance for an existing primary instance.

## Related links
{: #vs_orderinginstances-sys-related}

* [Procedure to order Flexible instances](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-vs_orderinginstances-procedure&format=markdown)