Enterprise Manager v11 does not license Backup Server v10a?

[srdegeus]

We upgraded the Enterprise Manager to v11 two weeks ago, but haven’t upgraded the VBR servers yet. Upgrade was mainly due to the ‘fixed’ login in v11, the upgrade of the Backup Servers will be much later this year.

At the same time we were in the renewal phase for out licenses.
When we uploaded the new license in the Enterprise Manager we noticed that this didn’t get distributed to our VBR servers in the regions.

Digging trough the logs we found the following entry:

Enterprise Manager's license will not be applied to the server. EntMngrVersion: [11.0.0.837], VbSrvVersion: [10.0.1.4854]

Which reads to me that Enterprise Manager v11 does not distribute licenses to VBR v10a.

While looking at the note at https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110 v11 Enterprise manager should work for v10 and later:

NOTE:
The format of the license file used in version 10 and later is not supported by earlier product versions. In order for earlier versions of Veeam Backup & Replication to work with Enterprise Manager 10 and later, Enterprise Manager does not apply its license to the backup servers with non-upgraded Veeam Backup & Replication.

Am I the only one with this issue, or is this “by design”.

Reason I am doubting our installation is because we get an error “Specified cast is not valid.” If we go to Configuration > Licensing > Instances

Things I have tried:

• Removing and adding a VBR server (forcing a sync?)
• Make sure to download the v10 license
• Running a repair from the .msi

I am thinking of running an uninstall and then an install again, or restoring a backup of 2 weeks ago when it still was v10.
Depending on if I am the only one with this issue or if EE v11 does not support VBR v10

(I have a case open for this since Thursday with number #04720844, but support is rather slow as I opened this with basic support which only responds during business hours.)

So my main question is, is this supposed to work like this or am I mistaken?

[HannesK]

Hello,
the question whether you are the only one with that issue can probably be answered by support. The forums are run by product management and only if support reports issues to R&D / Product Management we know about these issues.

In general, Enterprise Manager cannot re-distribute incompatible licenses. As you correctly say, the license format is the same in V11 and V10.

So I will verify whether it's an issue or working as expected with my colleagues. I will come back on this, once I have an answer.

Note: you can still install licenses directly on VBR servers if the fix in V11 Enterprise Manager is more important to you than license distribution. Licenses can be split via support portal / licensing support case.

Best regards,
Hannes

[srdegeus]

Thanks for the reply.

I was ‘just’ probing if there were other users who encountered the same. As I would be surprised if I were the first one to hit such an issue like this. Although you will only notice this when the license is changed. (Or if you debug the "Svc.VeeamBES.Collect.log".)

I’m positive that support will come back on this later today.

I know we can load the license directly on the VBR servers, we did test on one to verify the file is correct. But as we have over 20 VBR servers I strongly prefer to have this handled by the Enterprise Manager, even if this means a rollback or re-install of version 10.

P.S. I had regarded this forum as a community forum and I intended my question to my fellow Veeam users. I didn’t realize (myself) that this is R&D, next time I want to probe my fellow users I will ask this on a more community focused platform like reddit.

[HannesK]

Hello,
well, most customers upgrade VBR short time after EM and license distribution is often not really a frequent requirement for those customers who are still on socket licenses. And many customers with many VBR servers also upgrade much later than a month after release. So you might actually be the first one running into that.

Sure, it's a community forum where customers can talk directly to each other or can reach out to Veeam R&D (that's why it's called "Veeam R&D forums"). You will find much feedback in here also from customers and partners.

As the Veeam subreddit has much less participants, I assume that chances for a good answer are better on these forums (I don't follow reddit threads - just a gut feeling)

Once I have a definite answer, I will come back on this.

Best regards,
Hannes

[HannesK]

Hello,
only license distribution for the same major version is supported. We will clarify the user guide.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Best regards,
Hannes

[srdegeus]

Thanks for looking into this.
Having this 'on paper' helps.

For me I think I will roll-back to EM v10 for now. (Until we are actually ready to upgrade the VBRs as well.)

[HannesK]

Hello,
we improved this in 11a. V10 licenses can now also be distributed.

Best regards,
Hannes

[srdegeus]

Thanks for the update.
Glad to hear that this should work now, will put this to the test.