Licensing Issues with U4

[Trelor]

I installed the new instance based licensing however now I can't seem to find a way to have the Socket + instance based licenses on the same server. I have a backup server that is running to backup the VMs on the vCenter servers + our desktops. Do I need to have multiple Veeam servers now under this licensing model or am I missing something: Case ID: 03375484

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

You can install only one license key to the backup server. If you were operating with multiple keys, then you would need to merge these keys in the my.veeam.com (License Management Portal).

Thank you!

[Trelor]

The problem is I can't seem to merge because I had a trial key of the agents? In the past ( before U4 ), this was not an issue. Can the Trial key be removed from my account?

[FrancWest]

How do you merge licenses? We have 14 socket licenses and 7 agent licenses. The 14 socket licenses give me 6 'free' instances. How do I get the other one we had purchased? Also, it seems you can only use the instance icense when the socket license is 'activated' after a backup job runs on the ESXi host, only then the socket licenses are assigned and the instance count is increased. Until then we are unable to assign the instance licenses to all agents, since not enough socket licenses are activated. Result is that the agent job fail because of not enough licenses,

[Gostev]

As per upgrade guidelines in the Release Notes, you should replace your agent license with an Instance license. You can download one from the Customer Portal.

Free instances are not cumulative with purchased ones. For more details, please refer to the What's New document.

To merge your licenses, please open the Licensing support case on the Customer Portal. Thanks!

[FrancWest]

I read the what's new and release notes documents, but it's not clear on how to proceed when you have socket licenses and separate agent licenses (as in our case).

The 'what's new' states:

Customer can merge Perpetual (socket-based) and Subscription (instance-based) licenses into the single license file if centralized
Veeam management for virtual and other workloads protection is required.

But it isn't mentioned on how you can do the merge. Now I downloaded the instance license for the agents, then I immediately get a warning after adding them that we are under licensed, since the socket licenses are removed and replaced by the 7 instance licenses. All our VM's are then counted as instances, and since we only have 7 agent (instance) licenses, this causes the license error to occur.

Searching on your KB on how to merge you are redirect to an article on how to do the merge (https://www.veeam.com/kb1718), but it seems that this is no longer possible on the licensing portal. The 'merge' action is not available any more. Only 'send to license administrator' is visible.

I now have contact support to request for the merge, but it was much clearer if this was mentioned in the what's new.

[mfirewalker]

I'm in the same boat. Opened a support case to see what they can do about it. This isn't very straightforward and I hope I don't need to this every time I add agents to our subscription.

[TrevorBell]

+1

[veremin]

Searching on your KB on how to merge you are redirect to an article on how to do the merge (https://www.veeam.com/kb1718), but it seems that this is no longer possible on the licensing portal. The 'merge' action is not available any more. Only 'send to license administrator' is visible.

Your account does not seem to be selected as a license administrator in your company contract. That's why license merge is not available for you.

Were your account a company license administrator, you would have seen license merge button in the license portal.

Thanks!

[FrancWest]

Hi,

unfortunately not. I logged on using the license administrator account and don't see the 'merge' action.

Franc.

[McClane]

I have the same problem. No option to merge all licenses into one file. This change was not clearly communicated to the customers and looks like it wasn't even tested enough.
The licensing portal looks like a mess now.
Very unprofessional for such a big company.

[veremin]

Just double checked the information with web team - the merge action will be available, starting from tomorrow (January, 24th).

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Thanks!

[TrevorBell]

Guys,

My always on 24/7 mission critical environment can wait till tomorrow.

Seriously I know a lot of us maybe just installed and this is a gotcha ...

But I emailed support earlier today and no response.

I love Veeam ... no I do as @anton and @vit knows ..

Maybe a lesson learnt here ...

Thanks

Trev

[Gostev]

Trevor and all, please note that after deploying Update 4 GA on the backup server which has an agent license installed, you have 90 days grace period to get your license right. For the first 90 days, you basically get unlimited agents to use - we don't track consumption. This was put in place specifically to ensure smooth transition while we're updating our subscription licensing process and systems.

May be I am missing something, but at this time I don't understand what scenario of upgrading your B&R server to Update 4 may require you to make any changes to your license keys ASAP? Basically, everything should continue working as it is before the upgrade if you don't do anything at all about the license.

Thanks!

[FrancWest]

Hi,

let me try to clarify. In general we as admins don't like pop-ups appearing every time you start an application. . Now, when you start the B&R console after the upgrade, you get the pop-up about the grace period every time. Since the licensing portal has a specific section for U4 licenses I thought everything is fine and I downloaded and installed those to get rid of the pop-up. We have a mix of socket licenses and instance licenses (for the agents) and both licenses appear in the U4 license page. After installing the agent license our U4 install is converted to a 7 instance installation because of the fact we did install the agent license last. It isn't clear (nor from the what's new, release notes or licensing page) that this installation of the agent license file overwrites the socket license I installed first. Looks like the combination socket and instance licenses available on the U4 license page is not supported, you should only have one license. If you have a separate U4 license page, why not provide the merged licensed file instead of the two separate license files which aren't compatible with each other? Also, the U4 license page doesn't mention the fact that you have to do a merge before you can install the licenses on U4 or else you get in trouble .

So once I noticed that our installation was converted to a 7 instance license, I had to re-install the socket license. But that license only has the 6 free instance licenses, so I'm one license short. Because there's no way to add the 7 instances we have purchased, I'm unable to backup all 7 agents without having doing the merge first.

However, it looks like the license support department is very busy, since I haven't received a response from them yet a day submitting the ticket, while technical support responds within hours (kudos for doing that!).

Franc.

[Trelor]

Trevor and all, please note that after deploying Update 4 GA on the backup server which has an agent license installed, you have 90 days grace period to get your license right. For the first 90 days, you basically get unlimited agents to use - we don't track consumption. This was put in place specifically to ensure smooth transition while we're updating our subscription licensing process and systems.

May be I am missing something, but at this time I don't understand what scenario of upgrading your B&R server to Update 4 may require you to make any changes to your license keys ASAP? Basically, everything should continue working as it is before the upgrade if you don't do anything at all about the license.

Yeah I probably should have contacted support before trying to resolve it myself by trying to install both because I disliked the popup. For now while support resolve this I will just have to live with some desktops not backing up; oh well

[Gostev]

However, it looks like the license support department is very busy, since I haven't received a response from them yet a day submitting the ticket, while technical support responds within hours (kudos for doing that!).

Right, this was sort of expected, which is why we decided to make the grace period so long (90 days). Anyway, I hope you get the response soon - and very sorry about this inconvenience.

[rm76]

Just double checked the information with web team - the merge action will be available, starting from tomorrow (January, 24th).

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Thanks!

Having a same issue. Case #03375828 opened yesterday, and late in the evening support scheduled a webex session on 11-00 today. Looks like they don't know about problem with 'merge' functionality at my.veeam.com.

It's already Jan 24th, and there's still no 'merge' function available in "U4 licenses" section in my.veeam.com

And - NO, we DON NOT have a grace period to "make license right" because grace period ends when you try to install U4-instance-license over U4-socket-license, there's no option to bring things back.

Agent backups in my setup are stopped for more than 24hrs at the moment. Great job, licensing support.

[veremin]

According to the web team, merge button has been made available. Thanks!

[mfirewalker]

Licensing team responded after almost 24h. They do not seem to be aware of the issue.

New instance-based licenses are available only for subscription contracts, for perpetual contracts you will have to continue using the legacy licenses.

Please provide the error you are receiving when opening a case.

Not helpful at all. Case # 03376475

[TrevorBell]

Merge button is there .. but merge incompatible for the licences with 3 year support i just purchased
Merge my CPU and Agent License - Case # 03376526

[DonZoomik]

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... l?ver=95u4
You cannot obtain a new per-socket license for the current version of Veeam Backup & Replication. However, you can continue using the existing perpetual per-socket license which was obtained for earlier versions of the product. In this case, Veeam will add up to 6 instances to your per-socket license scope. The number of added instances equals to the number of the licensed sockets.

That's really confusing. Socket based licensing has been discontinued...? Instance = socket...?

[veremin]

Merge button is there .. but merge incompatible for the licences with 3 year support i just purchased

What exact licenses you're trying to merge? Socket perpetual license and instance Subscription license? Thanks!

[veremin]

That's really confusing. Socket based licensing has been discontinued...? Instance = socket...?

Documentation bug, don't worry.

Feedback has been passed to technical writers; note will be removed soon.

Thank you for drawing our attention to this; appreciated!

[aronny]

we have the same issue. we merged our 111 socket license with the 60 agent license. The file seems ok but if we try to activate the license key it says:"invalid license".
Auto Updater don't help out here. Just opened a case and hope to get more information in time because the "instance" backup don't work. No grace period here.

[ctg49]

Am I missing something wrt this license merge system?

We've got one block of 20 veeam agent licenses - subscription, in-support until JUN2019, and two blocks of perpetual VEEAM B&R, 6 sockets each, also in-support until JUN2019.

When I try to click either of them for merging, it's greyed out with a 'This license does not meet the merge terms' doodad.

Per the info block on the merge page:
'You can merge product licenses that are current on maintenance only. Product edition, license administrator and license type must match, with exception for Veeam Agent licenses ordered prior Update 4.'
As far as I can tell, they are on maintenance currently (until JUN2019), product editions I guess match? Though it doesn't let me select any, so I wouldn't even have the opportunity to have a mismatch. License administrators are the same (again, no chance to have a mismatch), and the VEEAM agent licenses were indeed ordered prior to U4 so the license type shouldn't matter.

Thanks.

[JeiBie]

Case # 03376606

[TrevorBell]

i get the same issue, i just downloaded a free trail for 1000 instances and hopefully get fixed within 30 days

i did sumbit a ticket yesterday to ask for a merge by support staff.

[veremin]

Guys,

We've just checked the licensing management portal along with merge functionality (that was made available few hours ago) and everything seemed to work correctly.

On a licensing management portal you should see a big banner on the upper side on the screen with "Get new licenses" button. When you click it, the licensing portal will show your current licenses. There you can select licenses that you want to merge and proceed.

As the result of merge, you will have either 1 license that includes only instances or 1 license that includes both sockets and instances.

You can merge Agent and Perpetual licenses with limitations described in the Licensing policy https://www.veeam.com/eula-licensing-policy.html

If you've done that and still experience the said issue, kindly, open a support ticket and provide its number here.

Thanks!

[aronny]

Case: 03378953

I tried a new installation with 9.5 u3a an another upgrade. Now i get the grace period but the wrong license is already pushed to my B&R Server.