Server Edition Missing Schedule Options

[BackupBytesTim]

It's come to my attention again that when an agent is set to "Server" for the "Operation Mode", some of the scheduling options are unavailable. It's never been a big concern until now, but always confused me just because it doesn't make sense that a more expensive license reduces functionality, so I thought I'd verify if those missing options were intentional or if something's wrong with our installation.

Mainly referring to the "If computer is off at this time", "Once backup is taken", "At the following: Lock, Log Off, When target is connected" options. Which all appear properly when an agent is set to Workstation mode, but seem unavailable when set to Server mode.

[Dima P.]

Hello Tim,

These options were designed for workstation backup, while with servers it feels not common to take the backup when target is connected or when someone logs off (less user integration compared to workstations or laptops). Can you possibly share your personal use case to understand the request better? Thank you for your post!

[BackupBytesTim]

For my specific scenario I have a customer server that has missed multiple scheduled backup jobs. I think, maybe, the server was powered off at the time and since it missed the scheduled backup time, just ignored that backup. And if that is what happened then there's no reason to worry about it too much since it should be fine in the future as long as it's powered on, however Veeam doesn't provide any information that I know of as to whether the server was on or off at the time the backup was meant to occur, or whether it was powered on or off at all at any time.

For workstations I would know because Veeam would have tried to perform the backup when the computer was powered on again, but for servers I really have no idea why it missed the backup so I'm left guessing.

I do agree such options are less common for the "logoff" and "lock" events, however for "When target is connected" I can certainly see many people using that option, though admittedly I don't have any specific use case right now. And for the "If computer is off at this time" certainly seems useful. I know we have several customers recently impacted by severe weather and had been without power at their offices for multiple days. Which resulted in several customers with missed backups, however if they're back online by the time anyone looks at it, it just looks like the backup didn't occur and there's no explanation as to why.

As that may seem contradictory, with "left guessing" and "I know we have several customers recently impacted", that's where my assumption comes in that maybe the first case that I'm "left guessing" about just had a power problem, but for them specifically I'm not sure, as Veeam doesn't show anywhere if there was even a gap in the computer being connected the VSPC server.

I will admit, I don't entirely disagree with the assessment that those features are less likely to be used, but even if just 1 company across Veeam's entire customer-base wants to use it, doesn't it make sense to have the feature, since it's already developed and available on the Workstation license option? It seems like it would take little to no time to have the feature available and support any issues, since it's the same functionality on the same operating system and is merely a different license.

Also from a reseller/service provider standpoint, it's harder to sell a more expensive license to a product when there's functionality missing. Even if it's functionality that may not be used, it still looks bad to say "this is more expensive, but we think you should use it" when the customer then goes to set up a schedule and sees missing options cause then it looks like the license is more expensive, and not just a little bit more expensive, but doesn't have the same capability.

And just generally from my own point of view I've always liked when there's a sort of "ultimate" edition of a product. You know, the one that you get because you don't know what features you might use in the future, so you just want to buy all the features. But then Veeam doesn't have that, there's different versions, with different features, but no version that has all the features.