your licensing sucks

[robg]

An otherwise great product has managed to get under my skin with regard to how you are fleecing people for money.

I don't need to pay for support, yet if I ever need to re-download my key, that is not permitted unless support is current.

So to get access in the future for what we have paid for (a one-time cost), we have to give you more money.

And then there's a 25% penalty to re-instate support - you know, for those of us who don't believe in wasting money over the course of years for support that is never used. That's what per-incident is supposed to be for, and the forums are free.

[Shestakov]

Hello Rob,
Wow, that`s tough. I`ve seen you on this forum writing good posts in a decent way for a year, so I`m a bit confused.

to get access in the future for what we have paid for (a one-time cost), we have to give you more money.

Could you clarify the issue, please. Support and even version upgrade are free of charge for those who are on an active maintenance. It seems fare to me to restrict support and upgrades for those who expired their licenses. Nevertheless, if the license is expired, you can still use the product and as you said, find solutions on the forums.

And then there's a 25% penalty to re-instate support - you know, for those of us who don't believe in wasting money over the course of years for support that is never used

I believe the fact you don`t use support very often is good as well, since you just probably don`t need any technical assistance.
kind regards

[robg]

It's well understood that support is paid, however it costs Veeam nothing to maintain an account for the customer to log-in to with a license file there available for download. That should be a basic courtesy to everyone that has given you money.

What am I supposed to do if years down the line I add more hosts. I can only download the license for the recently purchased ones. Are the license files cumulative, in other words do you keep loading them in sequence to increase the CPU count or are the old ones just LOST until support is renewed? Seems like a bunch of crap to me.

[Shestakov]

Rob,
I see your point.
If your goal is to increase number of hosts/CPU sockets, you can renew your current license and merge it with the new one to get more CPU sockets if you want to get a support as well.
You can contact your sales manager to get detailed information about prices, discounts etc. If you wish I can ask them contact you.
Here is also licensing FAQ. Thanks!

[robg]

Why do I have to "renew my current license" in order to get the license file merged? I already paid for it!

This software is not subscription based, is it?

Every answer I get is "just renew". Give us more money. I stand behind the original title of this thread. I am shocked at how shady Veeam is proving to be. You are needlessly fleecing your customers.

[mongie]

I understand what Rob is saying... If you buy a perpetual license, even if your support is expired, you should still be able to download the license file.

I'm sure Veeam isn't the only company that does this. How does VMware work?

[robg]

I have never heard of another company doing this. You can log in at anytime to re-acquire keys from VMware, even with no subscription service active. The same is true for Microsoft VLSC.

This to me is worth raising a major ruckus about. They are basically holding my past purchases hostage.

[ckent]

Having just inherited a new network which is using Veeam, i have spent the last 2 days trying to get a straight forward response to a simple question about licensing with no joy what so ever.

So im with Rob on this one..... your licensing (and the management of it) leaves a lot of room for improvement.
Never once have i had a vendor refuse to send me a copy of a license key or purchase details of a product that we have purchased.
Is not the whole idea of having a customer portal so facilitate tasks such as retrieving a sn/key ?

[Shestakov]

You can go to customer portal, to "Get support" tab and open a case there. Just choose that the case is not Technical but Licensing.

By the way,

This software is not subscription based, is it?

There are several types of Veeam licenses, including subscription ones.

Every answer I get is "just renew". Give us more money. I stand behind the original title of this thread. I am shocked at how shady Veeam is proving to be. You are needlessly fleecing your customers.

If you want to keep using VBR without support, you are good to do so until the license itself is expired. My point was if you want to merge/extend the license, you need to renew the existing one. However, as I said it`s better to discuss the details with our sales representative.
Thanks!

[lando_uk]

I too see the OPs issue - You should still have access to the original keys of the versions you bought.

I'm pretty sure if you opened a support case they would send you the keys, maybe they just make it hard so some people think they need to renew.

[Shestakov]

That`s correct. You don`t need to review to get your key. However it seems sane to be able getting the key without opening any support cases.
I`ll escalate your feedback to those who are in charge for the licensing procedures. Thanks!

[robg]

If you want to keep using VBR without support, you are good to do so until the license itself is expired. My point was if you want to merge/extend the license, you need to renew the existing one. However, as I said it`s better to discuss the details with our sales representative.
Thanks!

What does "you are good to do so until the license itself is expired" mean exactly. I thought the license is perpetual? It does not expire. That means you pay it all up front and it works for that same major release version (8), indefinitely.

And it should be able to co-exist at NO ADDITIONAL COST with other v8 licenses, always downloadable. This is a crooked policy.

[lp@albersdruck.de]

Interesting, I checked my full license:


Expires in about 10 years. Note that support expires sooner, which is expected.
Does that mean that if I choose to not renew my support contract that the license expires after 10 years?

[foggy]

Correct. In IT, 10 years almost equal to "indefinitely", since chances you'd want to use that old piece of software are close to zero.

[Shestakov]

What does "you are good to do so until the license itself is expired" mean exactly. I thought the license is perpetual? It does not expire.

As mentioned above by default we assign perpetual licenses for 10 years. However, in improbable case you want to prolong the license in 10 years, you can get a new one.
Thanks!

[robg]

As mentioned above by default we assign perpetual licenses for 10 years. However, in improbable case you want to prolong the license in 10 years, you can get a new one.
Thanks!

For free, or does that minor task require a lucrative maintenance contract as well?

[Gostev]

I am not aware of the current rules and policies around this (or if they even exist yet), as the first ever hypothetical situation will only occur in about 3 years from now, assuming someone out there will want to continue running B&R 1.0 in 2018. Which is hard to imagine, as it only supports ESX 3.0 and earlier

P.S. Not to argue with your main point (your feedback has already been passed to the licensing team), but this:

however it costs Veeam nothing to maintain an account for the customer to log-in to with a license file there available for download

is completely not true... basically, it's like saying that all empty airplane seats should become free at departure time for former airline's customers, since the plane is going to take off and fly to its destination anyway.

Nothing is free, and there a list of associated expenses on our side to let you maintain access to the licensing portal. Now, whether or not Veeam can swallow these costs and still support customers who are in turn unwilling to support Veeam - it's not for me to say (even though I personally think we should, just to be nice to people).

Thanks!

[robg]

Well you know, Microsoft VLSC does it without a subscription. Symantec does too, the list goes on. It's not "free" in the sense that there is some very minimal cost, but that should be a part of the purchase price.

Your phrase about "customers who are in turn unwilling to support Veeam" is a big stretch. We supported you by paying full price for a software product up front.

I don't know if it's a sign of the times or what, but every single staff member I've interacted with about this seems to have an entitlement mentality and the expectation of continuous revenue for support contracts. Maybe I'm old school, but that's kinda out of line.

[gairys]

robg, I understand your frustration. We purchased our licenses through CDW, 50 VMware licenses and 10 Hyper-V licenses. Since I run multiple Veeam servers and wanted reporting for management, I installed the recommended Veeam Enterprise Manager. Last year it took me over a month to get the 2 licenses merged so I could add them to the VEM server. The licenses expired a few weeks ago and I re-up'ed our licenses. What do you know, I get two separate license keys again. And it's now been 2 weeks trying to get someone to just listen to me and merge my licenses. I have talked to support three times now, and all of them have cut me off while I was explaining my issue, and the last person told me "we can't merge licenses like that. The server will take both license keys."

Gostev, please don't follow in the footsteps of EMC and make this an impossible company to work with. I enjoy using your products as they are fairly hands-off. But there are a few competitors that are matching your offerings at a better price, and more than likely half the headache to deal with small issues like this. My time is worth packing my bags and going somewhere else if it saves me a month of headaches.

[Gostev]

Gairy, I hear you, but can't do much about that - at least until I become Veeam CEO for now, I am only responsible for that part your are actually enjoying about Veeam

But, I do forward all feedback I get from my customers to the corresponding departments, so please keep it coming - so that they can improve. And posting your feedback on these public forums ensures it will not be "swept under the carpet" in the corresponding department so to speak.

[howartp]

Gairy, I hear you, but can't do much about that - at least until I become Veeam CEO

Off-topic, but who are you then??

I thought 'The word from Gostev' was precisely that - the CEO keeping in touch with his userbase, and it's always impressed me.

Identify yourself....

(Ps, thanks for Tapatalk - was only thinking about it last week!)

[JohnGG]

Its funny you mention the lic as mine says its expired but we paid for it for another year.
Even when i re-add the .lic file it still says expired

[Gostev]

@Peter just a VP of Product Management for now

@John, this looks like a UI bug. I will have QC take a look.

@All, regarding OP's issue, this looks to be intentional and documented limitation > http://www.veeam.com/faq.html
And perhaps the question is very common, if it made as far as the actual FAQ... still think it's not right though.

Stay current on maintenance to get:
Product updates and new major versions.
Access to technical support
Access to license keys management portal

Please note: You won’t be able to manage and download license keys if your maintenance expires. Veeam advises customers to always make a backup of all license files.

[Matts N]

And perhaps the question is very common, if it made as far as the actual FAQ... still think it's not right though.

Stay current on maintenance to get:
Product updates and new major versions.
Access to technical support
Access to license keys management portal

Please note: You won’t be able to manage and download license keys if your maintenance expires. Veeam advises customers to always make a backup of all license files.

Anton, only because it says this in the FAQ and is a known situation, it isn't very good. I kind of agree with the OP, that the license keys should be available without an existing maintenance contract. I haven't had any problem with this myself. Yet. But I suspect I have customers unaware of this and, after all, it is easy to lose a license file, for many reasons. Accident, new staff who can't find it, lost due to a hardware malfunction and backup is unavailable.

Worst case for me would be someone who loses the backup server and the storage where they have the license key, probably together with a lot of other important information. To have to call support, create a case, maybe have to pay additional fees to get access to the license key to be able to restore an environment from any kind of disaster is... not optimal. Yes, Devil's on the wall, but still...

// Matts

[lp@albersdruck.de]

Well another argument: we all know Murphy's law and that in case of a disaster you either have not made said backup copy of your license file, it is gone because of that disaster or your recovery media where you stored it is missing/unreadable. Yes we all should know better and follow the 6-3-1 rule for license files

How about this: if it does not happen already, store the license information inside the Veeam configuration backup (or alongside with it). I'd guess that most customers would make this regularly and store it alongside their backups at a safe place. And without their backups to restore, a license file can wait a few days of contacting support to get it again.

[Andreas Neufert]

I can follow all of your argumentation here, just want to bring up another view to this discussion.

VMware and Hyper-V is a very floating business and you will update your Hypervisor at least every 3 years with your hardware cycle.
And as well Backup and the Restore part is critical to your environment.
So why do you want to buy a product for a single VMware Version and will have no support after a year. This isn´t a good situation for any customer regardless of which Backup Product you use.
Veeam Maintenance isn´t that expensive compared with other verndors in that market.

For the 10years expiration part of Veeam licenses. The only customers that I am aware of that really needed a renew after 10years come from the military defense sector. Those want to operate a special closed environment for 15years with no change. We discussed this with licensing team and you can renew the license for free after 10 years. => To the same "old" version without a change.


Regarding the non updated license key from the B&R Screenshot above.
If your Backup & Replication Server is connected to an enterprise manager, you have to install the license there and it will be distributed to all B&R Servers. Maybe this is why you can not update the license file on your B&R Server.

[TommyB]

As mentioned above by default we assign perpetual licenses for 10 years. However, in improbable case you want to prolong the license in 10 years, you can get a new one.
Thanks!

There are plenty software products existing which are used for much longer than 10 years... so for me, this raises two additional questions:

- What happens on day "10 years"+1 ? Does VEEAM simply stop working?

- What happens in the unlikely, but not impossible case VEEAM goes out of business?

[Andreas Neufert]

This case is very theoretical. Do you know any customer who runs on VMware ESXi Version 3 (not 3.5).
It is the same mechanic like our 30 days trial.

[robg]

This case is very theoretical. Do you know any customer who runs on VMware ESXi Version 3 (not 3.5).
It is the same mechanic like our 30 days trial.

You can be SURE that they are out there. ESXi 3.5 is the last version of VMware that ran on 32 bit hardware, and not everyone moved from 3 to 3.5.

Last year I set up new servers for an investment firm here (and brought them on as a new Veeam customer too) - they last changed their servers out about 12 years ago and were only forced to do it now because Microsoft support for Windows server 2003 was at an end.

I know this is the opposite of what software developers want, but "set and forget" is very much a reality for a huge number of businesses out there.

[robg]

I can follow all of your argumentation here, just want to bring up another view to this discussion.

VMware and Hyper-V is a very floating business and you will update your Hypervisor at least every 3 years with your hardware cycle.
And as well Backup and the Restore part is critical to your environment.
So why do you want to buy a product for a single VMware Version and will have no support after a year. This isn´t a good situation for any customer regardless of which Backup Product you use.
Veeam Maintenance isn´t that expensive compared with other verndors in that market.

For the 10years expiration part of Veeam licenses. The only customers that I am aware of that really needed a renew after 10years come from the military defense sector. Those want to operate a special closed environment for 15years with no change. We discussed this with licensing team and you can renew the license for free after 10 years. => To the same "old" version without a change.


Regarding the non updated license key from the B&R Screenshot above.
If your Backup & Replication Server is connected to an enterprise manager, you have to install the license there and it will be distributed to all B&R Servers. Maybe this is why you can not update the license file on your B&R Server.

It's way more than you think, and not just for governments. People are confident in proven systems, and they don't fix what's not broken. Changing out all the hardware every 3 years is a really asinine thing to do for a small business. I'm surprised that you are this out of touch..

Still, getting back on topic, this isn't about the perpetual license expiring after 10 years.

Veeam should really make the download links for licenses available all of the time to people who have purchased them.