Feature Request: Allow mixing of Free and Paid versions

[jrousset]

So the agent for paid and free cannot be mixed? Is there any document which includes this information, thanks.

FREE licenses cannot be mixed with purchased licenses within the same installation of Veeam Backup & Replication
https://www.veeam.com/agents-windows-linux-pricing.html

[DDIT]

+1 vote for this.

There must be a way to do this technically that avoids abuse of moving licenses just to get support, so I hope Veeam's talented engineers can think of a solution. Perhaps a 30-day move window or something similar?

[Gostev]

Just wanted to provide an update on this.

Overall, our position on mixing free and paid agents did not change, and is not expected to change for the reason I've explained earlier in this thread.

However, as of Update 4, all sockets licenses include a few gifted instances: 1 per socket, maximum of 6. Depending on the number of sockets and your product edition, this should be enough for most customers to cover all their free agents (see conversion table under 2.1.1)

When you upgrade to Update 4, you will note there is the new check box in the license information dialog saying "Allow free agents to consume instances". If you flip it on, you free agents will automatically consume licenses, making your entire deployment including those agents fully supported.

Additionally, you will now be able to manage your agents centrally by creating the corresponding agent-based jobs directly in B&R console. This will use the same number of gifted instances as with "standalone" agents pointed to a backup repository, while simplifying your agent-based backup management dramatically.

[humannate]

Uhm, so, thanks to the wonderful 9.5u4, all of our backups are now broken, because they automatically took licenses from our VCSP license installed on our B&R server until it ran out.

How do we revoke these Agent licenses we don't need and continue to backup to the Repository? We don't need any paid Agent licenses; we only use B&R licenses for VMs; all our servers are VMs, we just backup a couple of desktops with Agent free at each site because it was slightly easier than using Easeus Desktop Backup (also free).

If this was a support issue, it should be obvious if you're using free Agents on a B&R server, that those agents are not included in support. We've never opened a ticket for support of agents.

This would be less of an issue if Veeam hadn't said "free is not going away" repeatedly over the last few years. We don't expect support for free agents, but breaking them all in an update and forcing us to reconfigure hundreds of agents across multiple client sites to backup to a network share instead, or buy licenses that are 5x more expensive over the 5-year life of a system than other paid backup solutions (which are more reliable and require less configuration anyway) is quite a different matter. We'll just go with another product.

[humannate]

So, from the product comparison matrix, it says that backing up to a Veeam B&R Repository is supported by Workstation Agent Free 3.0:
https://www.veeam.com/products-edition-comparison.html

However, the User Guide for both Veeam Agent 2.2 and 3.0 seems to indicate otherwise on the Revoking Licenses page:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agent ... tml?ver=30

There is this other thread related to this issue, but I think the User Guide for Veeam Agent needs to be updated to reflect the product matrix:
physical-cloud-f49/veeam-v9-5-u4-known- ... 56225.html

[Dima P.]

Hello humannate,

How do we revoke these Agent licenses we don't need and continue to backup to the Repository?

Open the license window and make sure that ''Allow unlicensed agents to consume instances' is set to disabled. That would stop you agents from getting the license counters from your license automatically.

In case agent was accidentally licensed - you can Revoke the given license from the host and that would switch agent back to free mode. Let us know how it goes!