Licence question NAS backup in v10

[hgrams]

Hello Anton,

I have a huge problem. We have 2 customers who recently bought VBR and are now complaining that they have to pay extra for a new feature like the new NAS backup in v10. We've convinced the customers so far with justifications, what and why, etc.

For 2 days now, rumors have been circulating in our Veeam sales department and in the technical department that the NAS-Backup is suddenly only NAS-Backup on disk subject to licensing. If you save the file data on tape, then it should be free. However, when interviewing 5 people, you get a different answer from each one, sometimes yes goes or no doesn't go.
None of Veeam's previous feature releases (announcement, blog, webinar) mentioned any license differentiation for the new NAS Backup feature.

One of my customers was so angry that he would have liked to throw the already purchased VBR license at my feet and turned to another backup software.
What can I tell the customer now? Do I tell him that (what a magic moment and surprise?!) the new NAS Backup to Tape software is no longer subject to licensing? He would certainly be thrilled. But if the v10 is released in January and it is still licensed, we don't need to watch him anymore and Veeam Backup & Replication has been running there for the longest time.

What surprises me a lot is that apparently in the internal communication at Veeam no clear statement can be made about this.
If you told that to a customer, it would not be an advertising message for Veeam.

I need an official statement as to how Veeam has defined the licensing for the NAS backup. Is there a difference with v10 between NAS-Backup to Disk and NAS-Backup to Tape or not?

I would be very grateful for a conclusive answer as soon as possible.

Kind regards

Harald

[Gostev]

Hello, Harald

File to Tape is the existing feature that has been in the product for many many years - and this has always been the free functionality. This is not suddenly changing in v10, of course. I'm not really sure where the confusion within Veeam comes from, because no one ever asked about this anywhere on any internal communication channels, which I closely follow.

Please note however that File to Tape is designed to copy backup files to tape, so fewer of larger files. It was never meant to be a full blown file-level backup solution, because it does not scale beyond a few millions of files.

Thanks!
Anton

[hgrams]

Hello Anton,
Thank you for the quick feedback.

What I mean is the new feature in v10 NAS backup where I can pull CIFS shares from NAS, File Server or Storage Snapshots. So I can backup either to disk or directly to tape. The question is whether it makes a difference from a license point of view whether I back up to disk or tape?

Best regards

Harald

[Gostev]

No. Don't forget the same was possible with File to Tape job for many years now: pulling files from CIFS shares, from their storage snapshots, and from Windows or Linux file servers. v10 merely improves the UI experience with registering CIFS share as the data source for File to Tape jobs, which was quite clumsy before. Thanks!

[hgrams]

OK, THEN. To get it straight. That means:

1. NAS CIFS backup to disk: I have to buy 1x VUL per 250 GB
2. NAS CIFS backup to tape: I can use it without additional license

[Gostev]

Correct.

[hgrams]

Thank you. I'll take care of it. That was a difficult birth, but now I get it.

[edirschedl]

I've to agree with hgrams, that the introduction of the new capacity based license (VUL) needed for the v10 NAS feature was really bad communicated to me. I've heard about it the first time two days before from my sales representative. For the technical facts in comparison the promotion was much, much better. I can understand that NAS devices aren't integrated in the socket-based licensing and that VEEAM wants also a compensation for this type of device, but I had hoped for a more notable information about the additional license. Yeah I'm in contact with my sales person and we are thinking about possible solutions.

Furthermore the NAS feature isn't a practical alternative for classical FLR (I don't like the slow mounting process here - sorry) for my big Windows fileservers (they are normal vms and are covered in the existing socket license) anymore with this license topic, because of possible huge extra costs.

[Gostev]

There's no mounting with NAS backups, since it is not image-level - and thus does not need to be "mounted" before the restore... its quite instant.

[edirschedl]

Yeah, you're right, Anton. That's the reason why I've waited for the v10 NAS feature also for my virtualized Windows fileservers to have an alternative for the slow classical FLR from the image-level backup. Sadly with the additional capacity-based license this alternative will be very expensive in comparision...

[Gostev]

The good news is that classical FLR from the image-level backup will be faster with v10 as well

[soncscy]

Sorry to necro this, but from the licensing FAQ, I'm not fully understanding some aspects of NAS licensing.

https://www.veeam.com/licensing-policy.html

Maybe it's just my naivete because our shop never bothered with NAS backup outside of clients, but what does "Front-end storage" mean here?

1. Do customer pay for the size of the share, or the data managed by a job?
1.a i.e., if I have a 100TB NAS, and I add it to Veeam, but I only backup a 100 GB folder, am I pegged for the 100TB or for 100 GB?
2. How does Veeam determine the capacity? Is it just Total Share Size, the actual Data on the Share? Or is it somehow able to know the full size of the NAS? (I'm guessing the latter is impossible...but the licensing documentation on this isn't super clear)
3. Asked above, but what exactly is the definition of Front-End Storage? Why isn't this defined in the Licensing FAQ? (again, if this is just common for NAS backup licensing terms, then mea culpa, we just don't deal with such things usually since we push the party line of JBOD and/or CA shares.)

Apologies for my noob questions, but just need clear answers.

[Gostev]

No problems! In general, as always with Veeam, our licensing is fair and just makes sense:

1. Only the actual data protected by a file backup job.
1a. Only 100GB.

2. Only the actual data on the share. Besides, if you exclude some folders or files sitting on the share from a backup job, than these will not be counted either.

3. Front-End Storage is primary NAS storage (where production data resides). The reason we're using this term is because there are many other licensing approaches in the industry: some license Back-End Storage size (where backups reside), some license Front-End Storage Capacity (total capacity provided by the protected NAS device), etc.

Based on your feedback, I will see how we can make this more clear with the next licensing policy update.

[soncscy]

Thank you! Now it's crystal clear, and I agree, having seen the cost for other NAS Backups, this is pretty darn good.

And definitely appreciate additional clarity in any documentation.

[Tobias.F]

One additional question regarding licensing of file server from my side. (As my question fits to the topic, I did not open a new thread)

Does a secondary target in backup job for file server requires additional VUL?

I am home user and I am using the V10 community edition. To backup my 400 GB data to disk 2 VUL of 250 GB each where used what is clear. But when I added a secondary disk target in the backup job, suddenly 4 VUL where used by the file server. Is it supposed to be like this? All information I found is talking about front end storage licensing.

[Gostev]

By design it should not, but there's a licensing bug in the GA build which leads to what you're observing. We plan to release the first cumulative patch this week that includes the fix for this issue as well. Thanks!

[Tobias.F]

Thank you. This confirms that my understanding of the license was correct. It is just a software bug.

[Dima P.]

Hello folks,

Veeam Backup & Replication 10 Cumulative Patch 1 is now publicly available and contains the fix for the backup copy license consumption issue.

Cheers!

[nitramd]

Thanks Dima.

[atakacs]

No. Don't forget the same was possible with File to Tape job for many years now: pulling files from CIFS shares, from their storage snapshots, and from Windows or Linux file servers. v10 merely improves the UI experience with registering CIFS share as the data source for File to Tape jobs, which was quite clumsy before. Thanks!

I muss say that I am a bit confused about the new NAS backup feature. As you point out it was already possible to get files from CIFS shares. So it the new feature just "cosmetic" (ie a better GUI - always appreciated !) or is there more to it ?

[Egor Yakovlev]

It's just "cosmetic" for File to Tape feature improvement in terms of CIFS share backup. v10 NAS Backup (File to Disk) is a whole new story with a new feature set which was not available before - file versions with real-time drag-and-drop history with point-in-time recovery, file archive storage, new algorithms of changes tracking, cloud archival etc.
/Thanks!

[Gostev]

Right, the main differences are backup target, scalability and features. Basically, a very simple D2T backup for a few millions of files at best vs. super scalable D2D backup with lots of advanced functionality.