[Enhancement Request] Stop over-charging for licenses when tenants are deleted

[AlexHeylin]

When deleting a tenant using the GUI the licenses should be revoked immediately as can be done by using PowerShell.

Support supplied this

Code: Select all

1.	Remove-VBOEntityData - you need to first remove the data from all the repositories for the user which you are trying to free up the license from. 
That can be done with this cmdlet. More information here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo365/powershell/remove-vboentitydata.html?ver=60

2.	Remove-VBOLicensedUser - this cmdlet will remove the license assigned to a user given that there is no data of this user in the repository. 
More information can be found here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo365/powershell/remove-vbolicenseduser.html?ver=60

This whole issue of rolling 31 day license consumption might make sense in perpetual-licensed end-user deployments but does not work well in rental-licensed multi-tenant where licenses are reported to Veeam and charged to the tenant in per-calendar-month increments. A tenant last backed up on 2022-12-02 should not still be chargeable in Jan when we clearly can't charge the tenant for it because neither Veeam nor we are providing any service to justify the money. It's tolerable to have to pay for 2022-12-03 - 2022-12-31 even though VBM did nothing, but it's completely unacceptable to then have to pay for 2023-01-01 - 2023-01-31 when VBM did nothing and the tenant didn't even exist in the system.

That rolling to fixed monthly approach really needs to be re-examined. At the least, a workaround of the GUI revoking the licenses when the tenant is deleted should be in place.

Arising from Case # 05868583

[Gostev]

Would it be OK, if the tenant removal process also automatically removed any tenant backups and then automatically released a license?

BTW, while you may be paying for the last month when you should not, keep in mind you did not pay for the first month - as newly added workloads are not included in the license usage reporting for the first (incomplete) month. Unless VBM365 does not have this Rental license feature implemented (I only know for sure it is the case with VBR).

[AlexHeylin]

Hi Gostev,

Thanks for your attention to this.

That would definitely need to be an option (not fully automatic) - I'd suggest Opt In as there might be a valid reason to remove the tenant and not the backups and any time there's a chance of deleting backups the default answer should always be "DO NOT DELETE THE BACKUPS!" - because as you know, people (like me) don't RTFM

I'm trying to work through the process to do this in PowerShell (starting with the tenant name) and it's surprisingly torturous. That's something that each SP would likely need to write to suit their particular way of deploying the multi-tenant. For example - we use a repo per tenant (with or without object repo), but I know some use one repo for multiple tenants. I don't think there's much Veeam can do here to make the PoSh route easier.

One thing I notice is that Remove-VBOLicensedUser states

IMPORTANT
You must remove user data from the backup repository before removing a license from Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 users. Run the Remove-VBOEntityData cmdlet to remove the user data.

I've assumed that removing the repo will achieve the same thing and skip the overhead of actually purging each user's backup from the repo. That begs the question - if the tenant is the only tenant in the repo, should the GUI offer to remove the whole repo (quick) rather than enumerate every user in the organisation and run purge their backup data from the repo (which I assume will be much slower).

As I understand it, a VBO license is only consumed to back up a user - not to restore them. https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo36 ... tml?ver=60

Licensing in Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 is based on user accounts whose data you back up; each protected user account consumes one unit of the license.

If that's true, then there's no reason to require the user's backups to be released before removing the license from the user. This would vastly reduce the complexity of the process, and make it much easier for the GUI to achieve without spending potentially significant time thrashing the storage removing individual backups (from a repo we'd delete anyway).

I know what you mean about the first month free - and I partly agree, but the finance people like the numbers to line up each month and I pretty much agree with them. In this case we paid for 29 days in Jan when there was no backup, and then because the 31 days expired on 2nd Feb we paid for 28 days (another month) in Feb where there was no backup. Revoking the licenses when the tenant was removed would have cut this down to just the 29 days in December which is fine with us.

Thanks

[Mike Resseler]

Something we can discuss internally, but the rule to only revoke it after 31 days (if you want to keep the data) comes from the fact that you can otherwise easily cheat in licenses. (Take backup, remove license, take backup, remove license... and with some automation that is pretty easily achieved)

[AlexHeylin]

Hi Mike,
I understand that. We'd accept revoking the license when deleting the tenant and (in our use case) the repo.
Thanks.

[AlexHeylin]

Hi Mike,

Today we've just got charged (reported for) three M365 licenses for a testing tenant which was set up, run for a few days, and then deleted last month (by someone who won't have seen this thread, or been aware of the PowerShell). This certainly doesn't meet the "free for the first month" which Veeam talk about and tell us to use as a sales tactic.

This really isn't acceptable. I strongly suggest the system needs changing, but if not - Veeam need to be very much more upfront about how this charging is going to work and stop telling SPs (etc) that they get the first month free because it's not true. Delaying the billing by a month makes it delayed, not free. The delay just makes it unhelpful from an invoice perspective. Please remember that anything to do with money gets seen by accountants and they like everything EXACT - something VSPC can't currently do with rental M365 licenses.

I reiterate that the rolling 31 day license consumption does not work properly when licenses are rental based on first - last day of calendar months.

The unpredictability / unsuitability of the license counts from VSPC are stopping us automating invoicing to tenants. I know in VCSP terms we're small - but if we can't get invoicing automated based on clear reliable numbers, then we're going to come under pressure to deprecate Veeam and move to Datto BaaS simply because of the overhead of billing Veeam. No-one on the tech team wants that - however we have to do what the company owner commands.

Thanks

[MaartenA]

A customer will always terminate the contract based on a calendar month or months in our case. So i do agree here that also on the Veeam side it should be on a monthly base and not 31 days.
For us it should work if we get like a grace period for the first 7 days of a month so we have time to delete the tenant and if needed the backups without consuming licenses for this month. It should also be possible to be able to restore but not to backup and consume a license. So maybe with a checkmark on the repository where you can set it to a restore only option without consuming any license. Removing this checkmark will consume license again for the month.