How to protect VM using instance instead of perpetual license

[Saskatoon Kevin]

I have a merged license with a mix between perpetual socket and instance based workloads. We've added a few additional hosts to our environment, and we were intending to use agents to backup the vms on these guests instead of agentless processing. I do get the impression from this helpcenter article (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... l?ver=95u4) that we can license VM's without an agent and without a socket license by applying an instance license to to the VM; however, I cannot figure out how to get the license onto these individual vms (I can't find an option to add license, only revoke license). Running the job with just the VM errors with not enough licenses (I've about 200 instance licenses remaining). These new hosts are a part of a new cluster under the same vcenter.
Is anybody familiar with configuring a mix between socket and instance license for VMs without agents?

[veremin]

In your case to apply instance license to VM you just need to back it up with computer backup job. How many VMs you're trying to back up with computer backup job? And what license edition you have? Thanks!

[Saskatoon Kevin]

Thanks, we have enterprise licensing and we're only looking at about a half dozen machines.

Would this type of backup just be the windows/linux computer type and just use server for the job mode? I'd assumed this was using an agent and would try to deploy and thought that would defeat the difference between the VM and Server based instance.

[veremin]

Correct, to achieve you goal you need to

- create protection group (for these 6 VMs)
- create agent backup job, configured in server mode

More information can be found here.

With such setup agent backup job should consume instance license.

Thanks!

[Saskatoon Kevin]

Thanks, this is the same way that we create machines for either clusters or stand alone vm's with physical passthrough RDM's. These are registered on our licenses as standard servers though, which to me makes sense as they are utilizing an agent. I had presumed the VM instance was leveraging vmware snapshots, but perhaps I'm mistaken?
So I guess I'm still a bit confused on what the difference between a VM instance and a server instance is (and how to create the vm instance).

[veremin]

Instance is just a license currency. You can spend it on a protecting different types of workloads: cloud VM, workstation, server, etc.

In your case backup server will register this workload as a server and consume certain number of instances for protecting it.

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

[jmmarton]

If you only had instance licensing, then those instances could protect VMs using a hypervisor-based backup or an agent-based backup. But when you have a license file that has a mix of sockets and instances, hypervisor-based backups will only use socket licenses. Therefore if you have a few VMs you need to protect on additional hosts, your options are either to use agents or to purchase more sockets.

Joe

[Gostev]

Right, in presence of sockets, hypervisor-based backups will only consume sockets, just as this was before Instances were introduced to replace agent-specific licenses. The only option in your case would be to cancel license merge, and use Instance license in a separate backup server.

[Murigar]

The situation of mixing sockets and instances for VM backups is quite frustrating.
Sounds like a bad business decision to force socket license holders to convert them instance licensing.

Why can we not simply assign an instance license to a VM resource? The same way we assign to a server or workstation agent.

What would be the methodology of using Enterprise Manager to separate out the VBR for Sockets then the VBR for instances.
Can this all live in a single standalone (non vm) box?

Case # 03734988

[Gostev]

To allow mixing of sockets and instances for VM protection would require Veeam to revise and increase the pricing significantly for both, which would be much more impacting. So trust me, it was a very good business decision for Veeam (you should have seen the alternatives required to retain profitability with mixing allowed).

Also, please note that converting from sockets to instances costs literally nothing (we do that at the price of your sockets renewal, and you can buy up to 2 years of subscription at this price).

If you want to completely separate sockets and instances, these have to be completely independent installs as per Veeam licensing policy (and also for technical reasons of how VM licensing logic is implemented).

[stevetNOVUS]

Hi All,

I need some clarification on the following.

This is from the Veeam FAQ section of the licensing web site
Question: "Can I have both VUL (per-workload) and per-socket licenses?"

Answer: "Customers can have a centrally managed environment that uses both VUL and socket licenses. However, not all products can be combined (a full list of mergeable VUL and socket products can be found here). For example, if you protect VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V VMs with perpetual per-socket licenses, you must protect all vSphere and Hyper-V VMs with sockets in that environment. VUL licenses can still be used for any other non-VM workload type."

So, our current configuration is
A single VBR server running 9.5 Update4 licensed with 8x Perpetual Sockets Enterprise Plus Edition
1x vCenter controlling 4x ESXi Servers (VMs protected with VBR 9.5 8x Perpetual Socket licenses)
1x vCenter server controlling 3x ESXi Servers (NOT being protected by VBR at the moment)
1x vCenter server controlling 2x ESXi Servers (NOT being protected by VBR at the moment)
6x Physical Windows Servers (NOT being protected by VBR at the moment)

We would like the following
A single VRB server running Veeam 10 licensec with a mix of perpetual sockets and VULs as follows
1x vCenter controlling 4x ESXi Servers (VMs protected with VBR 10.0 8x Perpetual Socket licenses)
1x vCenter server controlling 3x ESXi Servers (VMs protected with VBR 10.0 VUL licenses)
1x vCenter server controlling 2x ESXi Servers (VMs protected with VBR 10.0 VUL licenses)
6x Physical Windows Servers (Agent based protection with VBR 10.0 VUL licenses)

Is this possible?
I think it is, but the Licensing FAQ Answer has left me in some doubt

Many thanks in advance for any feedback
Steve

[wishr]

Hi StevetNOVUS,

Currently, you cannot mix socket-based and instance-based licenses to protect VMs in a single backup environment. I'm merging your topic with an existing discussion - please take a look.

Thanks

[stevetNOVUS]

Hi wishr,
Looking at the dates of this post, the original comments would be for veeam 9.5, is this still true for Veeam 10?
Cheers
Steve

[Gostev]

Yes. Regardless of versions, you need to pick a single way of protecting your VMs: either with the socket-based license, or with the VM-based license. The latter is recommended, because it provides full license portability in case some VMs will later be migrated to physical servers or to cloud machines - whereas socket-based licenses can serve on-prem hypervisor sockets only.

[stevetNOVUS]

Hi Guys,
Thank you for the update. I'm pretty sure we will be moving to instance based licensing
Cheers, Steve