LICENSING NEEDS TO CHANGE

[JamesNT]

We install Veeam B&R for all of our clients and back their stuff up to our cloud repository along with local backups to a local repository. So far so good.

We just found out that one client has missed 47 days of backups. We received NO email notification from the installation of B&R on their server. Why did backups fail? Because the checkbox on the license screen to Update License Automatically was not checked. That's the ONLY reason.

UNACCEPTABLE.

I get it, Veeam deserves to get paid for their hard work and I fully intend to pay Veeam every penny I owe them. Their software is great. But this one thing has GOT TO GO. When you're managing almost 100 vm's across dozens of clients, it's very conceivable that a support person may forget to check that check box or that it may, for whatever reason, become unchecked. What's worse is there is ZERO notification that backups are failing for this reason after the license file expires.

I implore Veeam to do something different. Either check the box automatically or have email failure notifications include when backups aren't being done because licensing is expired. Something. Anything other than what we have now which is to find out backups aren't happening because a client calls asking for a file from five days ago and, OH MY GOD, backups haven't run for 47 days!!!!!!

James

[tomnewman]

I agree with what you say about not getting failure notifications if a licence expires but this shows it is important that your process for verifying backups includes a check on the total number of reports you should receive each day.

What would happen if one of your customers backup software crashed or hung, you wouldn't get any reports either.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi James,

First: Are you a VCSP? Since you are talking about your cloud repository. If so, please apply for the service provider specific forum.

Second: You are right that there should be a notification, and while I am not 100 percent sure, there should have been one. I am going to pass this information to our PM's responsible for Cloud Connect. I think the customer should have received those notification/ emails, but probably ignored them

Tom has a point also, and I agree with him that a flag should have been raised when a customer misses a backup day (or more). So the effort/ notification should be double.

I can't promise anything, but at the minimum we will bring this on the discussion table and figure out how this can be avoided if one of the two parties ignores email or notifications.

I am open for suggestions how you would like to see this workflow...

Thanks
Mike

[veremin]

Can you tell me how global notification as well as job ones are configured on this server? Thanks!

[JamesNT]

@Mike Resseler

We place our notification email address (as the name implies, this is an email account just for notifications and not general email) in the General Options/Email settings of Veeam Backup & Replication of all clients. We manage our client's backups for them and provide offsite backup repository. For local backup, clients have a USB drive or QNap depending on client size and needs.

The issue is that if a license file expires because the checkbox in question is not checked, then backups will NOT occur and there is ZERO notification from Backup & Replication.

The way I would like this handled is we should be getting a WARNING or FAILED email from Backup & Replication when the license file expires.

So, no there was no case of the customer ignoring the emails. The emails never went out.

James

[Mike Resseler]

So it is not a pure cloud connect play, you are also the managed service provider of the backup & replication server running on-premises with the customer. Which means that you should get all the notification and big red crosses when there is an issue. I am thinking now if Veeam ONE would have captured this... I will ask a few people with more knowledge on these solutions and see what their idea is.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi James,

I asked around (sorry for my late reply... We are prepping heavy for VeeamON at this moment

There are 2 things that should have give a warning:
1. VeeamONE (if you are using that)
Veeam ONE alarms get triggered when backup jobs are failed by whatever reason
2. Veeam Backup & Replication
If the job fails for whatever reason (license expiration case included) and notification settings are configured properly, there will be an email sent so you should have received that.

Can you check?

[JamesNT]

@Mike

Apologies for the late reply. We are rolling out 4b to all clients. To clarify, we are talking about Veeam Backup and Replication, not VeeamONE.

JamesNT

[wishr]

Hi James,

Could you please share with us the email configuration of this server? We are sure you should have had a notification email delivered in case if it's properly configured.

Thanks

[Gostev]

At the very least, Cloud Connect infrastructure for sure sends daily email report that includes status of all tenants, and health information for the infrastructure itself. Are you receiving one? If not, then this means you just don't have email notifications set up on your VCC server in the first place - so there's no way for Veeam to notify you of any issue in the first place.