Entra ID VULs :-(

[pufferdude]

Just tried the Entra backup in 12.3... it's awesome! Then I saw it took 1 VUL for every 10 "users" (not sure what counts as a "user" because it's like 2x the number of people we have in Entra)... blowing way past my spare VULs.

10:1 ratio for this is insane, Veeam! I'm soooo tired of your incessant money grabbing for your products (I'm looking at you, File to tape VULs). In my instance, I have 30 VULs. We're a small shop and only back up 20 VMs. We pay like $2000/yr for this, as it's worth it. Yet I try to use a new feature to back up my Entra and it wants *26* MORE VULS?? INSANE. You want me to pay more to back up Entra than my Entire VM inventory??

You can keep your over-priced toys. Your pricing is completely out of touch with SMBs. This should be a 50:1 ratio product.

[Gostev]

Hi, R&D is not responsible for Pricing and Packaging so we're a wrong group to discuss this with. However, I know that the price was not set randomly, but rather based on elaborate research process and current market realities (how much competition in charging for similar capabilities).

Having said that, this part of the issue "2x the number of people we have in Entra" will be addressed in the next update: the same good folks have requested that we license Member users only going forward (whereas current code also counts Guest accounts). So they definitely do monitor and listen to the feedback they get from our customers through Sales team! And hopefully with this change in place, you will find effective price more acceptable.

P.S. Assuming you as SMB use Veeam Essentials, this has 50% discount on VUL price backed in, so even if we're "out of touch with SMBs" at least it's not "completely"

[pufferdude]

I'm glad to hear that the VUL footprint will be coming down by not counting guests... that will help some for sure. And yes, we're using Essentials, which ironcally is capped at 50 VUL, so effectively Veeam is *also* saying that you have to have a REALLY small Entra ID footprint, or else you need to move to Advanced! [facepalm]

I totally disagree with the "we priced it this way because of our competitors" stuff. How about you price it so that NO ONE would NOT want to run Veeam, ever? Be disruptive. Yeah, I know... not enough $$ to satisfy your IP overlords. Thus is the fate of all good, scrappy companies that get popular and sell out.

[Gostev]

"NO ONE would NOT want" means everyone will want that sounds good to me!

I'm not sure how you can disagree with the fact. This was in fact the actual process to ensure our offering is priced according to the market (I saw a slide with MSRPs of all competitors). Personally I would prefer slightly different user to VUL ratio but not my call. Also it's not a big deal because business can always decide to adjust later based on average discounts level, just like they did it for NAS backup some years ago when they doubled GB to VUL ratio.

In any case, as I've said R&D is a wrong group to discuss this type of concerns with. You should share it with your Veeam sales rep or just use the vee.am/feedback form to send it directly to the folks in charge.

[pufferdude]

Thanks for that feedback link, I was unaware of it!

Talking to my sales rep is a LOL as they (I’ve had several) are amongst the most useless people I’ve ever tried to get help from.