Upgrading version changes licensing limits

[lucaliga]

Hello All,

We use Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 with the status Valid license Type Community (Package M365Suite) and few days ago we upgraded from Version 5.0.3.1063 to 7.1.0.2031 then after two days upgraded to 8.0.3.1044 and I'm deeply monitoring it.
Some weird things happened.

Preamble:
We didn't change anything on Microsoft 365: no user added, changed nor new sharepoint site nor licenze modification nor anything else.
We have only one Microsoft 365 organizations. We don't have anything on-premises, only Microsoft 365 (online) component with these usage details:

Microsoft Exchange - None: there are no Mailboxes nor Archives
Microsoft SharePoint - Only non-personal sites
Microsoft OneDrive for Business - Yes we use.
Microsoft Teams - None: We don't use Teams

Many of you will think: why them pay for Microsoft 365 if they use almost nothing ? Yes, you're quite right but this is another long story and in short: We are in the middle (since years) migration from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365.
As soon as migration will be near the end we will buy a regular complete subscription license but until then we will stay on Community license.

The weird things are:
1) Since upgraded to Version 8, everyday at 20:30 (08:30 PM) we receive email with subject
"[Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365] Failed to update license"
License update interrupted:
Paid license is not installed.

I found is a known issue https://www.veeam.com/kb4671 that will be removed in a future release. OK no problem.

2) We had job notification settings in place. After each version upgrade the email changed deeply:

VBM Version: 5.0.3.1063
Date---------: 10/10/2024 00:12
Subject-----: [Warning] MYORG.onmicrosoft.com - Backup_OFFICE365 (60 objects), 0 issues
Details------: Your license limit has been exceeded by 1 users. Users exceeding the license count will not be processed
My consideration: At Version 5 email is [Warning] and Details correctly explains that a License Exceeded https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo36 ... e-exceeded occured specifying how many user (in my case 1) are exceeding. This is very clear and correct.

VBM Version: 7.1.0.2031
Date---------: 11/10/2024 00:58
Subject-----: [Warning] MYORG.onmicrosoft.com - Backup_OFFICE365 (60 objects), 0 issues
Details------: 0 objects failed. Your license limit has been exceeded by 1 user.
My consideration:At Version 7 email is the same excepts the Details is even more clear adding explanation that backup is complete and all data was saved (0 objects failed) and warning is only related to a License Exceeded and not related to an incomplete data backup. Again well done: very clear and correct.

VBM Version: 7.1.0.2031
Date---------: 12/10/2024 01:00
Subject-----: <the same as above>
Details------: <the same as above>
My consideration: <the same as above>

VBM Version: 8.0.3.1044
Date---------: 13/10/2024 00:06
NO email received!
My consideration: no email notification sent by job. Unusual behavior. I checked Job log: The repository is out of date and needs to be upgraded. MY FAULT. After upgrade all backup repositories marked as Out of Date. I forgot to Upgrade Repository manually and I done in the morning.

VBM Version: 8.0.3.1044
Date---------: 14/10/2024 00:06
Subject-----: [Success] MYORG.onmicrosoft.com - Backup_OFFICE365 (60 objects), 0 issues
Details------: Transferred: 406.6 KB (11 items) at 1.1 KB/s (0 items/s)
My consideration: At Version 8 on first execution the email completely change in appearance and basically changed in contents. Subject becomes "[Success]" and Details is related to job statistics. But looking at the tasks performed during the job session:
14/10/2024 00:00:02 :: Job started at: 14/10/2024 00:00:02
14/10/2024 00:00:03 :: Found 60 objects :: 0:00:19
14/10/2024 00:00:03 :: Your license limit has been exceeded by 1 users. Users exceeding the license count will not be processed. :: 0:00:18

First issue is email notification in Version 8 was wrong: it ignores the warning about License Exceeded (correctly detected by the job) and consider the job totally successfully completed as [Success] stated.

VBM Version: 8.0.3.1044
Date---------: 15/10/2024 00:04
Subject-----: [Success] MYORG.onmicrosoft.com - Backup_OFFICE365 (40 objects), 0 issues
Details------: Transferred: 132.8 MB (81 items) at 636.0 KB/s (0 items/s)
My consideration: At Version 8 On job second execution the notification email again change in contents. Subject still "[Success]" but number objects decrease. Again looking at the tasks performed during the job session:
15/10/2024 00:00:02 :: Job started at: 15/10/2024 00:00:02
15/10/2024 00:00:03 :: Found 40 objects :: 0:00:17
15/10/2024 00:00:03 :: Your license limit has been exceeded by 11 users. Users exceeding the license count will not be processed. :: 0:00:17

Second (and bigger) issue is that something changed on license usage calculation and/or License Exceeded evaluation. In Version 7 and on job first execution in Version 8 the License Exceeded was 1 user.
In Version 8 starting on second execution License Exceeded is 11 users. The "User Guide - Licensing and License Types" of both V7 and V8 are equal on the final Note about Community Edition:"allows you to process up to 10 user accounts, up to 1 TB of Microsoft SharePoint data and up to 10 teams in all organizations."

The job logs are stored in folder C:\ProgramData\Veeam\Backup365\Logs\<org name>.onmicrosoft.com\Backup_OFFICE365 and file name are in format Job.Backup_OFFICE365_YYYY_MM_DD_HH_mm_SS*.log
All logs before 15/10/2024 (the second execution of backup job in Version has the line: Licensed users: 20
All logs on 15/10/2024 (and after) has the line: Licensed users: 10

Seems to me that before Version 8 Veeam applies the conditions for License Exceeded Limits "Additional processing of no more than 10 user accounts or 10% of the license count (whichever is greater) is granted if you exceed the license limit." even for Community license resulting in 10 Licensed users (issued by Community licenze Limit) plus 10 Licensed users (issued by License Exceeded Limits) = Total 20 Licensed Users.
Starting Version 8 Veeam doesn't applies anymore these conditions License Exceeded Limits resulting in 10 Licensed users (issued by Community Edition license) and No more.
Note that doubles grace limit https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo36 ... e-exceeded "Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 allows you to exceed the license limit by up to 20 user accounts or up to 20% of the license count (whichever is greater)." applies only to Subscription License (and Community Edition is NOT a Subscription License but a sort of "NO license installed" then automatically turned into "Special Free NON Subscription license with limitations". Seems to me this could be the only reason suddenly UNLicensed users grows from 1 to 11.

Someone have the sames issues ?

By the way: Veeam Backup & Replication has powershell cmdlet to retrieve tasks of a job session: Get-VBRBackupSession -Name "Job1" | Get-VBRTaskSession
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 has only Gui ? Powershell cmdlet not available to get tasks performed by a job session ?
You could manually use a sort of reverse engineering (like I done) for reading the logs, format txt, but each one usually contains 10.000 lines, not so simply to read and understand.

I will appreciate any comments.

Thanks
Luca

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Luca,

For 1. Correct, this will be fixed in a future update. The problem seems to be that VB365 tries to update the license, and that is not really possible as there is no license

For 2. This seems a bit more difficult...

#1, in version 5 (and still now) you seem to be protecting 60 objects. (Those are obviously not users only). What are those objects? I assume it is a mix of OneDrive 4 Business (which equals a user license) and a bunch of SharePoint sites?

The reason I ask, the community edition is 10 licenses maximum so you can protect a total of 10 users (even if it is only O4B) max.

I'm concerned about the drop of 60 to 40 objects. If you haven't changed in the job configuration/ organization, at least it should find the same amount of objects. Can you confirm nothing has changed there?

(For the licensing, as far as I can recall, that grace period has never counted under previous versions, and I cannot remember we made a change to it but what might have happened is that the grace period is now skipped because it considers the license invalid... I might need to check this with our QA team.

[lucaliga]

Hi Mike,

thanks for reply.

I readed with attention and many many times https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo36 ... tml?ver=80 (and previous versions) to try to fully understand license counters.
I know and agree with you that number of objects protected is not the number of users protected.

The backup job notification email lists the object type saved. In my case the total 60 objects protected was:

A) Type OneDrive - They are Microsoft OneDrive for Business account - quantity 20. Consume 20 license units because each user has one of it.

B) Type Web - They are Microsoft SharePoint sites - quantity 40 must be divided into two sub-categories:
Microsoft SharePoint sites - personal - quantity 20; they COULD consume license units BUT due owned by the same users at point A don't consume MORE license units because the license conters measurement unit is user (not objects included to a user account). User is not double counted when own different object types.
Microsoft SharePoint sites - Group and non-personal - quantity 20; These kind of object don't consume Veeam license units.

Remember what I wrote before. All jobs logs before 15/10/2024 (which are jobs executed at V5, V7 and the first execution at V8) have the lines

Licensed users: 20
Users loaded: 31

All logs on 15/10/2024 (and after) have the lines:

Licensed users: 10
Users loaded: 31

The number of users in the M365 organization remains 31 (no user added or removed) -> no Onedrive for Business no Microsoft SharePoint sites personal added or removed. There was no changes in objects quantity consuming licenses nor number of users in M365.
But Licensed users drop from 20 to 10. These means quite sure something changed in license counter logic: drop from 20 to 10.
These weird thing is my Community Edition in version 5 and 7 process 20 user accounts not 10.

the drop of 60 to 40 objects caused by V8 protects only 10 users. The now excluded 10 users has 1 personal Microsoft SharePoint sites + 1 OneDrive for Business = 20 users objects these is the dropped quantity.

To make this long story short and dont annoy you anymore with this: If we, for this period (remember we are in the midlle of migration from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365), will buy
a Veeam regular complete subscription license for 10 users and benefit of conditions related to

License Exceeded Limits :

Additional processing of no more than 10 user accounts or 10% of the license count (whichever is greater) is granted if you exceed the license limit.

resulting in 10 licensed user + 10 License Exceeded Limits users = Total 20 Licensed Users.....this could be sufficient for us now BUT we will be compliant to Veeam licensing terms or we will violate it ?

Thanks for help.

Regards
Luca