NAS backup to tape License workaround

[dumb_licensing]

So I've heard there's a new model where backing up to tape is going to consume licenses but not of Veeam files. Does this mean I can just make my NAS a VM and it won't be affected by this change? 500GB per instance you act like we're backing up to YOUR infrastructure, it's pretty ridiculous, but if this workaround is that easy, why bother making my license consumption instantly double for no reason?

[Dima P.]

Hi and welcome to the forums,

Sure you can do that.

[bsadiq]

I have physical NFS server with 100TB drive, can I mount it on a VM and backup the VM with the mounted drive to bypass the licenses?

[Gostev]

No, as mounted drives are not included in the VM snapshot, which is what is getting backed up

[bsadiq]

Do you have any suggestions on backing up 100TB physical Linux NFS server to Cloud and tapes?

[TaylorB]

So I've heard there's a new model where backing up to tape is going to consume licenses but not of Veeam files. Does this mean I can just make my NAS a VM and it won't be affected by this change? 500GB per instance you act like we're backing up to YOUR infrastructure, it's pretty ridiculous, but if this workaround is that easy, why bother making my license consumption instantly double for no reason?

Old post, but I just want to warn you on this one. I have been exploring similar workarounds as I felt blindsided by the file to tape costs, too. The problem with this solution is that what is going to tape will be a huge backup to disk file. So you'll have a 100TB (minus dedupe and compression) .vbk file spread across a lot of tapes. Say you need to restore a single NAS file from tape. You have to restore your 100TB .vbk file first, and then do a normal VM guest files restore from disk. So it could literally take you days to restore a single word document from tape.

[Gostev]

Do you have any suggestions on backing up 100TB physical Linux NFS server to Cloud and tapes?

I would suggest using File Share backup jobs for Cloud, and File to Tape jobs for tape. But at this size, it makes little sense to license its protection with VUL. I would suggest that you contact your Veeam sales rep for a Capacity license. It's going to be cheaper than VUL right out of gate, plus Sales have much more flexibility with discounting Capacity licenses (unlike VUL).