sockets to instances switch - feedback

[mcz]

Dear PM's,

we've recently switched from the socket-based license model to the instances because it made a bit more sense to us. We did some calculations about how many instances we needed and then made the order. Installing the license on the server was quickly done, also on veeam one side - but then I got complaints by veeam one that we had exceeded the license.

Asked our seller and finally created a ticket where I've got told that replicas do consume an instance... Man...
When we do calculations about the protected vm's, you don't expect to need more licenses for the monitoring side. Of course, somehow it makes sense that you need an instance per monitored vm, but that's totally different compared to the sockets model...

For me it just doesn't make sense when I need say 30 instances for my workloads that I'd have to pay for 50 instances for the monitoring. Of course, you can exclude them, but it's not the same as 'back then'. Sometimes I've got the feeling that the whole licensing model (especially the switch) has got a bit too complicated allthough it looks quite simple at first sight.

Please let me know your thoughts - thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Michael,

Hmm... that's a good point. I would agree with you and say that there should be an exception in licensing for replicated VMs if they are powered off and the source VM still exists. If one of the rules does not apply, then Veeam ONE should be consuming the license key. Let me discuss it with the RnD team and I will come back to you.

Thanks!

[Gostev]

Yeah this looks like an oversight on our part.

[mcz]

Thanks for the positive feedback, Vitaliy & Anton! Very very interesting to me that nobody else has mentioned it before. Probably others had enough instances...

[wishr]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for bringing it up! I guess customers were excluding replicas from monitoring in such cases.

Anyway, we are looking into this scenario and will update this post once we have something to share.

By the way, are you testing your replicas? If so, how are you doing that (failover, SureReplica), and how much time do the replicas usually spend in the "powered on" state during such tests?
Also, what monitoring and reporting capabilities of VONE you are using for replicas? Most of the time, replicas are powered off, hence the question.

Thanks

[mcz]

By the way, are you testing your replicas? If so, how are you doing that (failover, SureReplica), and how much time do the replicas usually spend in the "powered on" state during such tests?

Yes, we are testing it via SureReplica and (planned) Failover. So the duration of the power-on also depends on the amount of vm's in the application groups and could also last an hour or so.

Also, what monitoring and reporting capabilities of VONE you are using for replicas? Most of the time, replicas are powered off, hence the question.

As a general answer I'd say that I don't care about OS-specific issues like no space on the disk because that would happen on the source-VM as well. But I'd love to get events related to the hypervisor, like when there's a snapshot which is 300 days old... AND if you failover to a replica, you're interested about the OS-events as well, so it always depends on the current usage of the replica if you wanna know everything, nothing or just a bit.

In general I'd love to be able to monitor replicas without limitations, they are the longer arm of the source-vm and very important... If your replica fails during a failover, you'd ask why you ever had a monitoring tool when it didn't warn you long enough. You get the point, I'm sure.

Thanks!

[mcz]

Just wannted to update this topic: Obviously the vm's created by the sureBackup-Jobs are also counted - which is not a big surprise but there it's not possible to list them in the exclusion due to the random name they get...

[Vitaliy S.]

Michael, yes, we are aware of that and are trying to come up with a solution that would address not only replicated VMs but others that are not always powered on.

[rsomby2]

Same issue here, underlicensed when it comes to monitoring. Not fair
I already made a exclusion for _replica but its still exceeded. So i had a look at what vms i have and see we have alot of old powered off vms (going to be archived/deleted, but takes time)
If there was an option to choose a criteria to exclude powered off vms, that would be nice.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, we will adjust our licensing logic in the next major update to address this situation (powered off VMs will not be consuming a licence key). Thanks for your feedback!

[mcz]

Hi guys, I'm running v12 since a month and it doesn't look to me as the situation has changed. Is there a change to be expected in v12 or would that be part of the next updates? Thanks!

[RomanK]

Hello Michael,

I spoke with our QA recently and they said that 0 bugs were found for the logic below.

In v12 the license should not be consumed for the newly created, powered-off VMs. The license is consumed for the powered-on VM.
The license must return when the VM is powered off for 30 days. Safe exceed is equal to the number of instances the license covers (i.e. +100% first month) which should be enough for the disaster recovery.

Having that, could you please share more details about what is happening in your environment?

In addition, please open a support case and provide the case ID in this thread so we could collect all the additional details and investigate it accordingly.

By the way, what license type and package are you using?

Thanks

[mcz]

Hi Roman,

it's a bit confusing to me... Veeam one talks about 29 used instances. I just realized that veeam agents are (now) also included... In any case I do have two consumed licenses for CDP replicas, which might have been started (via failover) the last weeks or so, but now they don't run for days - still consuming. Is there a longer timeout?

Regarding the other questions:

[mcz]

btw, how can I exclude (certain) agents from veeam one monitoring?

[RomanK]

Hello Michael,

Correct, the agents are consuming the license:
Veeam ONE per-instance license apply to the following types of objects: Computers protected with Veeam Agent for Windows, Linux, Mac, IBM AIX and Oracle Solaris that are managed by Veeam Backup & Replication servers that you connect to Veeam ONE.
The number of instances consumed by a managed computer depends on the mode in which the Veeam Agent job operates.

The replica has a unique property that helps us understand it is a replica. So the license

• should not be consumed for the newly created and powered-off VMs
• is consumed for the powered-on VM and returned if the VM is powered off for 30 days
• safe exceed limit is equal to the number of instances the license covers (for the first month)

In case of disaster recovery, it is expected to turn on the replicas and get the license to exceed without penalties. Monitoring and reporting for all objects should work as usual.

Thanks

[mcz]

ok, thanks Roman. How can I exclude certain agents from the monitoring? I can exclude certain vm's, so I'd assume that the same is possible for agents. Thanks

[RomanK]

Hello Michael,

Sorry, I've missed the second question. Virtual Infrastructure VM and Backup Infrastructure VM are different entities. Excluding some VMs using the "Monitored VMs" setting affects only Virtual infrastructure but VMs protected by the monitored Veeam Backup & Replication servers consume the license.

The same logic with the agent: Computers protected with Veeam Agent for Windows, Linux, Mac, IBM AIX and Oracle Solaris that are managed by Veeam Backup & Replication servers that you connect to Veeam ONE.

No exclusion exists for "protected objects".

Thanks

[mcz]

ok Roman, thanks, got that. One last thing that I have found: Licenses are also consumed for surebackup routing-lab-vm's. Allthough you can argue that another vm is protected, you would never backup such a vm nor would you need a monitoring as it's also an ephemeral instance...

[RomanK]

Hello Michael,

I've created a SureReplica in my lab where only VBR is added to Veeam ONE and no license was consumed.
I've also created a SureReplica in another lab where both vCenter and VBR are added to Veeam ONE. Expectedly, VONE consumed one instance through the virtual infrastructure. Virtual Labs are VMs that consumes resources as it is included in the monitoring and reporting scope with Veeam ONE inclusion rules.

There is no reason to limit someone to monitoring such objects.

Thanks

[jorgedlcruz]

Hello Michael,
Roman had a great point there, you can exlcude that VM manually, or even better, if what you want is a very precise and exact parity to VBR. You can remove the whole Virtual Infrastructurte in inclusions, and add a business view group called vms with backup. Then Veeam ONE will only monitor VMs that you are protecting with Veeam Backup & Replication.

Let us know.

[mcz]

Jorge, I have to come back to this thread. So I could exclude the whole virtual infrastructure for excluding the agents, but then I only have the business view which is not really what I wannt.

And also in terms of agents I think there I could divide between the agents installed on a vm (that's probably something that I would like to monitor) and an agent on a notebook - which I wouldn't/couldn't monitor. Why can't we exclude agents based on (hardware) type?

Thanks!

[jorgedlcruz]

Hello Michael,
That is a very interesting use-case, we will discuss and possibly add it to the roadmap to improve exclusions based on Business View, where the BV can not just be Virtual Infra, but some other types.

Thank you so much!

[mcz]

Thanks Jorge, sounds good. Any idea what we can do in the meantime? The agents are eating up my licenses and so I can't monitor other important vm's...

[jorgedlcruz]

Hello Michael,
As we sell the licenses together, there is no way to buy VeeamONE standalone just to monitor a few VMs, at the end we follow what VBR gives us. But as said, we will consider it to add some sort of Business view support for Agents and other Veeam components in the future.

Thank you!

[mcz]

Jorge, not sure if I have expressed everything correctly. So my current situation is that B&R is reporting me 25 instances available and 24 used. veeam one reports me 25 instances but 26 used. on the veeam one side I'm having one vm in addition which is not backed up on the other side - but why 26?

I already removed a vm for testing purposes, but the number won't go down. What can I do at the moment to at least monitor all vm's that need to be monitored?

[jorgedlcruz]

I am not sure, what can you see in Veeam ONE License tab, and in VBR tab?


Isn't the same?

If you think this is a bug, please open a support ticket. It is difficult to troubleshoot these issues on the forums.

Thank you!