Veeam Backup Essentials + Agents Licensing

[Sakshy]

Hello!

Could you please help me on the correct way to plan and license the following case?
Currently, there are no acquired Veeam licenses.
There are 2 sites and several physical servers needed to be backed up: 1 physical server in the one site and 2 physical serves in another site.
Each site has tape library connected to Fiber SAN. There is no virtual infrastructure.
We would like to install two Veeam Backup Essentials Standard servers (one server in each site) and configure backing up to tape library via Fiber SAN, using Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows Server edition.
Each physical server to be backed up has two CPU-sockets.
Is it correct to use Backup Essentials in this case, or do we need to use Backup & Replication product?
What is the correct way to license this setup?
As far as I understand, both Backup Essentials and Veeam Agents are licensed by instance.
I guess, we need 10 instances for Backup Essentials (3 PHY * 3 instance = 9 => 10 instances). Do we also need licenses for Agents Server edition?
Here is a quote from License FAQ concerning Agents: "Both of these products are available using Subscription licensing with either the Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam Availability Suite™ license SKU. There is no longer a license SKU just for Veeam Agents." Does it mean that we can't use Agents with Essentials?
Could you provide SKU numbers of licenses for our case?

Thank you!

[wishr]

Hi Aleksey,

Welcome to Veeam Community Forums and thanks for posting your question.

There is a new instance-based licensing model that was recently introduced with B&R 9.5 Update 4 release. I would recommend you to take a look at this FAQ, Veeam Licensing Policy (note the conversion tables), and Instances Calculator that all together will make the licensing aspects a bit more clear.

A couple of additional things to consider:
1. Currently, you are not allowed to backup directly to tape (yet), but you are able to create backups using Managed Agents, then archive them to tapes using Backup to Tape jobs - please note that this feature is only available on the Enterprise B&R license. The difference between File to Tape (available in all product editions) and Backup to Tape jobs is described here and there.
2. Veeam Backup Essentials includes not just B&R, it also offers extensive monitoring capabilities delivered by Veeam ONE, but has additional limitations (6 sockets, 30 instances can be purchased at max).
3. Agents utilize/consume the same "instances" that are universal across most of the Veeam products, thus Agents can be used with the Backup Essentials bundle.

Thus, summarizing the above you require a bundle of 10 B&R instances or a bundle of 10 Backup Essentials instances, where the first option offers wider scalability options for future expansion at the cost of Veeam ONE monitoring and slightly higher price.

Hope this helps. Should you have any additional questions - just let us know.

Regards,
Fedor

[salah]

hello, I propose a question
I have five license veeam agent, can I use in the VBR?
thank you

[wishr]

Hi Salah,

Welcome to Veeam Community Forums and thanks for posting your question.

I've moved your post to the existing topic covering Agent licensing aspects. Could you please take a quick look and let us know if you have any additional questions?

TL;DR Yes, new instance-based licenses they can be used in B&R product for licensing both physical and virtual workloads.

Regards,
Fedor