File share backup licensing

[perjonsson1960]

Folks,

When we are backing up a "normal" physical server machine, it costs one instance no matter how much data is backed up.
When it comes to NAS/File Share backup, it is a little different. I have read this page, so I know how it is calculated:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

The question is: Why?

We have recently started to back up three SMB File Shares located in a single NAS, using three separate jobs. And that costs us a total of 11 instances... Can someone please explain this licensing model, so that it makes sense?

Kind regards,
PJ

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello PJ,

The difference is in the number of processing/recovery options you have with NAS/File Share backup feature.

Here you go a couple of existing topics to read through:
How to backup a file server?
Planning and licensing - Physical file server backup
V10 NAS Backup License Cost

Let me know if that helps!

[vmtech123]

NAS/File share backup is for just that. NAS devices, and when you can't backup a full VM.

If you have a SMALL file share, and want to use it that is fine too as there is some great features like versions etc. that you can send to tape, cloud and many more options available. It works REALLY good.

If you are like me, and have 20 file servers that are all 20TB-50TB, don't even bother. It's an insane amount of cash to move that to NAS backup. I'd prefer the 20 VUL over the 100+ VUL it's going to cost for my hundreds of TB of data.

To go one step further I still use the Socket licenses so I don't have to stress, I just keep it on VM backups and life is good.

I wish there wasn't a way to 5X my price to use a feature but it is what it is.

[perjonsson1960]

Folks,

Here you go a couple of existing topics to read through:
How to backup a file server?
Planning and licensing - Physical file server backup
V10 NAS Backup License Cost

Well, that was a mouthful!
Thanks!

I guess that backing up our 23 TB physical fileserver with File Share Backup is not an option... I will continue with Agent Backup.

PJ

[Vitaliy S.]

Well, I've tried to share to all relevant discussions with some feedback on the feature. Anyway, if you're happy with your existing solution, keep it. Maybe for some other shares (less than 500 GB), you can try out the NAS backup feature and this will not consume any VUL key.

[perjonsson1960]

As I indicated in my initial query, we have already started to use the NAS/File Share Backup feature, but with a large NAS. I think the maximum capacity is 10 TB, and we use about half of that space now, and that uses 11 instances.

Thanks for your information!

Kind regards,
PJ

[vmtech123]

Recently I am up to about 1PB worth of total data I need to get on tape some how.

I need to back it up, and keep it for an insane amount of time. (our retentions are 25-50-75+ Years in some cases)

The amount of work to copy to a new server, so i can zip it, then spit it to tape in multiple locations, then delete the VM is pretty high.

However, with my socket licenses for all my servers I can do this. Even with VUL backup to tape it wouldn't be bad.

This would be 200 VUL for archive data I don't even restore for the most part.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE come up with an "archive" solution to just put things on tape, but allow restores of single files. or at least keep the index available in Enterprise manager so I know what files are in the VBK on that day.

At this point we have stopped migrating from TSM and it looks like the only option pricewise we can use and may have to scale that back up.

I don't need 99% of the NAS backup features, although it would be amazing, i just need data off PROD and on TAPE with the option to get it back when asked without restoring a 30TB VM for a small file.

Even cloud is getting expensive for us, and long term once the data is on Tape I don't pay monthly.

[Dima P.]

Hey vmtech123,

v12 will allow you to send NAS backups from repository to tape at no additional cost: you can keep NAS backups in the disk repo with a short term retention and tape out those backups with backup to tape with a longer retention. Will that work for your case?

[vmtech123]

Not really

We don't use NAS backups because of the cost associated with our data size.
It makes more sense to use just regular server backups on our VM's that are 40-50TB etc. It's going to be hundreds of VULs. Plus we have socket licenses, and the conversion rate I was given wasn't great.

Right now, I can create a server, move data to it, Veeam zip it, then copy to tape at 2 locations. I"ll then deleting it from prod. It's a hassle for restores. I need to run some PowerShell scripts to make my own index of files etc. then restore a whole server to the repo to restore specific folders back to prod if asked..

All I need is file to tape, no versioning, no scheduled job, (2 locations would be ideal for 2 libraries but not necessary if I can do it in 2 spots)
You could even call this feature ARCHIVE to tape or something and remove some of the features. The sole purpose is to get this stuff OFF of the SAN and keep a copy on a tape and eject it. Hopefully I never need to bring it back.
It can be VERY basic. you guys already have the ability to do this in your software. Just cripple it a bit and make it included or cheaper haha.


I already have socket license which allow me file server backups so an additional File share \ NAS backup is unnecessary. Switching over is going to cost us too much.


Or, maybe I am wrong here.

If I create a File Backup job, it's going to cost me VULS, run on a schedule, allow versions, and all that fun stuff.
If I create a File to Tape backup, add a folder from a file server and send it to tape, does it still use VULS? - this is sort of what I'm looking for. (but the ability's to select 2 media pools would be ideal)

Restoring from a tree structure by server name / folder would be perfect.

The ability to add some sort of notes for long term archive type dumps would be nice too, for 10 years from now to know what was in a folder etc. (this would be less necessary)


If I am wrong about File to Tape using VULS perhaps this solution WILL work for me. without the bells and whistles.

[Gostev]

Yes, File to Tape also uses VULs in V12.

[vmtech123]

Thanks for the confirmation!

Working with my rep to see about volume licenses or options. Azure cloud storage my be the cheapest option for this ridiculous retention policy

[jperham]

All I need is file to tape, no versioning, no scheduled job, (2 locations would be ideal for 2 libraries but not necessary if I can do it in 2 spots)
You could even call this feature ARCHIVE to tape or something and remove some of the features. The sole purpose is to get this stuff OFF of the SAN and keep a copy on a tape and eject it. Hopefully I never need to bring it back.
It can be VERY basic. you guys already have the ability to do this in your software. Just cripple it a bit and make it included or cheaper haha.

I'm in the same boat here. Would love for a feature like this to exist. The current licensing structure to allow this kind of file to tape "backup" would eat about 800 VUL licenses for our dataset which is not feasible.

For example, we have a yearly dataset that needs to be archived to tape in the 300- 400TB range. I just need to be able to archive it, export the tape, delete the data off the SAN and pretty much forget about it unless I need to restore portions of it at a future date.

[Gostev]

@jperham I don't recommend using VUL for this range. VUL is convenient for when you have a smaller NAS, say under 100TB. For large file shares it's best to use the special capacity-based NAS backup license, which is cheaper than VUL right out of gate.

Plus this being a separate license/SKU gives our sales much flexibility to discount only this part of the license depending on a perceived value of our NAS backup capability for the specific customer's use case. Discounting VUL is much harder specifically because it is universal, meaning it can be bought "for NAS" with a heavy discount but later used for protecting some other workloads... which is why our sales leaders do not like to approve big discounts for VUL.

[vmtech123]

I never though about people cheating it like that. That makes a ton of sense.

A VUL per VM works for most things. And in the average environment maybe a few TB is all they need

Does this sound like a reasonable solution @gostev. I don't want to break any rules.

I could create a file server, lets call it 30TB and buy 30 TB worth of licenses.

I could create a share on that, copy data to it, archive it to my tape at both sites then delete the data off the server.

Technically the source would never grow above 30 TB. I'd have file level restores and a structure under the file menu to access them as well.

Every time I wanted to archive more data, I'd remove the old deleted folder and add a new folder to the job.

Rinse and repeat.

That would work for me, but I don't want to be bending any rules, or locking myself into something that isn't as designed and have to restore it all next version

[Gostev]

Yes, that's totally fine of course. You never need to license more than 30TB for a file share backed by 30TB worth of disk storage, even if content of the entire file share changes completely every day. Technically speaking, Veeam will consume a license according to the highest watermark of the file share size in the past 30 days, whether the data it hosts is dynamic or completely static.

[vmtech123]

Ok... That seems VERY fair to me and I'll be buying this ASAP then.

That solves the whole archive issue of just needing to move stuff to tape then delete off production.

I tested this small scale and have a few empty folders on a server I copied items too and backed up to tape, deleted, and did it a few times. Veeam is doing an excellent job creating the file structure as well to do restores from the GUI.

I may blog about this or perhaps this needs to be more obvious some how... (archive to tape feature would be cool i still think too) - basically what I am doing, but more streamlined, with an archive tab showing the folder structure of archive data. (not backup data if we want to get technical)

[soehl]

special capacity-based NAS backup license.

Hi,
is this license type new and is there more information about it?! We back up over 300 TB from an Isilon system and the data stock is constantly growing.
We signed a new Veeam license deal last year and for the NAS workload there were only VULs on offer.

[Gostev]

Hi, no it's not new - we had it since inception (i.e. when NAS Backup was first introduced in V10). Thanks

[Vodochnik]

Hey vmtech123,

v12 will allow you to send NAS backups from repository to tape at no additional cost: you can keep NAS backups in the disk repo with a short term retention and tape out those backups with backup to tape with a longer retention. Will that work for your case?

Thats correct, but only partially. I have Backup Repository (NAS).
What I'm trying to achieve is to backup2tape oldest .vbk's in a chain.

If I create Files2Tape I get 29.05.2023 20:39:43 :: License issue for \\nas01\veeam1\01_VW_Server: Unable to process the workload: your license has been exceeded. Bcoz all VBK's takes 10TB.
If I'm trying to create Backup2Tape, Veeam only let me choose LATEST chains or ALL chains. I cannot select restore points I want to backup.

Would it be possible to NOT to eat licenses for tape backups from backup repository? Now I have to add repository as NAS, otherwise it's not offered in Files2Tape sources.
I think Veeam "knows" his own backups and could allow to send them to tape at no cost? Not only "latest" or "all" but those I want

[Gostev]

No Veeam backup files should consume a license for tape export, if you see it otherwise please open a support case for investigation.

[Vodochnik]

No Veeam backup files should consume a license for tape export, if you see it otherwise please open a support case for investigation.

I did, Case #06087186 but no avail, I'll try to explain what I try to achieve.

I run forward incremental backups with fulls every week. First fulls in month are going to off-site tape (simplified).
This month there was no free tape, so I ordered some and 2 weeks later they was delivered.

I have 3 VBK's for every VM, I want to backup oldest VBK's to tape:



If I select File2Tape I need 20 VUL's for 10TB. Not an option.

If I select Backup2Tape or Repository2Tape I see the following message:

But I want to backup oldest backup chains to tape! Or I want to select which chains to backup to tape. Or not chains but VBK's only (without .vibs).

Possible solutions: additional settings by Backup2Tape/Repository2Tape to specify which files to backup or get rid of this artificial* limitation at all (at least for *2Tape jobs).
*If I have to deal with huge amount of data I can bypass this limitation by using iSCSI for example. And have 1 server consuming 1 VUL.
This limitation is new and it forcing me to downgrade to v11.

Frankly speaking I'm using since many years some script like this one: https://github.com/mmehrtens/NAS-Backup ... S2Tape.ps1
And it was always working. Dear Veeam, don't be such greedy, subscription is expensive enough
Thanks!

[Gostev]

If I select File2Tape I need 20 VUL's for 10TB. Not an option.

This should not be the case when exporting VBK files to tape as the licensing logic skips all Veeam backup files, based on the list of known extensions. So this is something support will need to investigate, as it is not an expected behavior. If they determine there's a bug in your specific scenario, then you will receive a hotfix.

[Vodochnik]

I will add "the word from Gostev" (was reading this mailing many years too) to my ticket, thanks)))

[Gostev]

You should absolutely do that, LOL good one

[Gostev]

Just an idea: perhaps only this warning does not consider that some of those existing F2T jobs can be processing Veeam backups.

[Gostev]

@Vodochnik please run your File to Tape job and look for the licensing warning in the actual job, this should definitely provide actual information with the exclusions accounted for. Note: you will most likely not get a warning there at all because I understand your export to tape ONLY Veeam backups files, which is free.

[Dima P.]

Hey Vodochnik,

29.05.2023 20:39:43 :: License issue for \\nas01\veeam1\01_VW_Server: Unable to process the workload: your license has been exceeded. Bcoz all VBK's takes 10TB.

Asked RnD folks to review the case details. Thank you!

If I select Backup2Tape or Repository2Tape I see the following message: But I want to backup oldest backup chains to tape! Or I want to select which chains to backup to tape. Or not chains but VBK's only (without .vibs).

Say yes in the dialog and disable the incremental backup in the tape job - that would force the tape job to process only latest full backups created by the source job.

[Vodochnik]

@Dima P.

Say yes in the dialog and disable the incremental backup in the tape job - that would force the tape job to process only latest full backups created by the source job.

There is no "Yes" in the mentioned dialog, only "Latest" or "All" But I want oldest backups to archive to Off-Site tape.

@Gostev as mentioned by Dima P. : 29.05.2023 20:39:43 :: License issue for \\nas01\veeam1\01_VW_Server: Unable to process the workload: your license has been exceeded.
And if I look into logs there are not much explaining infos:

Code: Select all

[size=85][27.05.2023 22:52:25.257] <12> Info         [CProxyAgentStarter] Create Proxy transport agent manager.
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.288] <19> Error        [InstancesLicensingClient (0aadd48d-155e-4b54-9d3f-3cf2180b3799)] Request failed with error (duration: 00:00:00.7187503): Unable to process the workload: your license has been exceeded
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.304] <19> Error        [TapeInstanceLicensing (ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544)] Cannot license instance, trying to rollback...
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.304] <19> Error        Unable to process the workload: your license has been exceeded (Veeam.Backup.Common.CLicenseCommonException)
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.304] <19> Error           at Veeam.Backup.Core.CInstancesLicensingClient.CheckAsyncResult(CInstancesLicensingResponse response, CancellationToken token, LicensingLogScope log)
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.304] <19> Error           at Veeam.Backup.Core.CInstancesLicensingClient.LicenseInstancesInternal(IReadOnlyCollection`1 instances, CancellationToken token)
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.304] <19> Error           at Veeam.Backup.Core.CInstancesLicensingClient.LicenseInstances(IReadOnlyCollection`1 instances, CancellationToken token)
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.304] <19> Error           at Veeam.Backup.Core.CInstancesLicensingRunner.LicenseInstance(ILicensedInstance instance)
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.304] <19> Error           at Veeam.Backup.Core.CBaseFileShareInstanceLicensingHelper.TryLicenseInstanceWithRollback(CFileShareBackupLicensedInstance instanceInfo)
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.320] <19> Info         [TapeInstanceLicensing (ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544)] Multiplier for backup [2f7978b6-fd9c-456e-8ade-056c541e1e92] was reset to 0 (initial value is 0) from date 05/27/2023 00:00:00
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.320] <19> Info         [InstancesLicensingClient (53dcdfa8-5c3f-4763-a466-0cdf286a0455)] Request: [Platform: [File2Tape Share (Id: [ea263618-c793-4db8-a6f2-72d1d1f84e1c]; Type: 0)]; Instances: 'ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544']; Response: [RequestId: '53dcdfa8-5c3f-4763-a466-0cdf286a0455'; Timeout: 00:00:00.2500000]
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.476] <12> Info         Product version is 12.0.0.1420, Transport version installed on server 192.168.106.230 is 12.0.0.1420.[/size]

I would expect something like: Amount of Data: 10TB, Free Data: 500GB, needed instance licenses: 19, installed licenses: 6, aborting...
I have read about 10% rule (tolerate 10% "overbooking" of instance licenses) but don't know if it actually works.
All logs are in the ticket #06087186

[Vodochnik]

Digged some deeper in log (licensing):

Code: Select all

[27.05.2023 22:52:24.444] <19> Info         [TapeInstanceLicensing (ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544)] Licensing instance [ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544]. Processing size: 10419913809920; Current size without backup [2f7978b6-fd9c-456e-8ade-056c541e1e92]: 0; Sum: 10419913809920 (multiplier: 19). Points info: []

[27.05.2023 22:52:24.476] <19> Info         [TapeInstanceLicensing (ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544)] Instance [ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544] multiplier updated from N/A to 19. Previous / Current changed time [N/A] / [05/27/2023 20:52:24].
[27.05.2023 22:52:24.554] <19> Info         [InstancesLicensingClient (0aadd48d-155e-4b54-9d3f-3cf2180b3799)] Request: [Platform: [File2Tape Share (Id: [ea263618-c793-4db8-a6f2-72d1d1f84e1c]; Type: 0)]; Instances: 'ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544']; Response: [RequestId: '0aadd48d-155e-4b54-9d3f-3cf2180b3799'; Timeout: 00:00:00.2500000]
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.288] <19> Error        [InstancesLicensingClient (0aadd48d-155e-4b54-9d3f-3cf2180b3799)] Request failed with error (duration: 00:00:00.7187503): Unable to process the workload: your license has been exceeded
[27.05.2023 22:52:25.304] <19> Error        [TapeInstanceLicensing (ec6bcc46-a6b4-4cfa-af66-3b567b18d544)] Cannot license instance, trying to rollback...

I think Current size without backup [2f7978b6-fd9c-456e-8ade-056c541e1e92]: 0 is what Mr. Gostev mentioned above, without backups 0, but multiplier remains 19.

[Dima P.]

John,

There is no "Yes" in the mentioned dialog, only "Latest" or "All" But I want oldest backups to archive to Off-Site tape.

If you plan to do that periodically at some point in time your latest full backup will become your oldest backup. For one-time / manual archival operation file to tape job is a better option indeed.

Unable to process the workload: your license has been exceeded

I've checked with RnD folks, and it appears to be a known issue with vanilla Veeam B&R v12 release: Veeam backup files explicitly added as files to the file to tape job may under rare circumstances consume license. The fix is already included in the latest cumulative patch, so please update your B&R installation and let us know how it goes. Here is the link to the patch Release Information for Veeam Backup & Replication 12 Cumulative Patches. Thank you!