Licensing strategy confirmation

[JaySt]

i'm looking to get some tips/confirmation on the correct way of calculating the number of required licenses for a large eductional tenant we're looking at.

This MS tenant has 200 teachers and 2000 students. They combine those in the same MS org. They use Microsoft 365 A3 licenses for all those users.
Teacher data is in scope for backup, student data is not. This makes a big difference in the user count for licenses.
It seems difficult to reduce the required number of licenses when we would still need to backup the whole org as a result of the need to backup sharepoint sites where teachers and students both have access to. So essentialy, it could be the case all students have access to at lease one sharepoint site (outside of their personal ones).
To my knowledge, (as example) if 1 teacher and 10 students have access to a site, 11 licenses will be counted for VBO when backing up the single site. (correct if wrong please).
Any tips on matching the license count with the (smaller) scope in the most simple way? Perhaps a suggestion for filter/exclusion/inclusion strategy that would minimize administration of new sites (which are created every day offcourse)?

[Mildur]

Hi Jay

From the technical side, every licensed M365 user which have access to a protected SharePoint sites must be licensed.

I suggest to get in contact with your Sales/VCSP contacts at Veeam and discuss this use case with them.
If I remember correctly, there was a special rental license package for VB365 and educational M365 tenants. Our Sales team can answer that if it's still exists.


Best,
Fabian

[JaySt]

thanks for confirming the technical side.

seems like there is indeed a rental license package for educational purpose. I'll work it out through sales.

[kurt]

Similar question here. I'm backing up around 25 Teams and a couple SharePoint sites where at least 50 users have access to. I'm only backing up 5 actual user's OneDrive and Exchange mailboxes. The license report says I'm only using 5 licenses. Is that correct and we only need to buy the minimum of 10 licenses? I feel like I would need 50 but the Sales reps said I only need 10. I'm currently in trial.

Thanks

[Mildur]

Hi Kurt

Yes, the software only tracks license usage of active users (5 users you protect their OneDrive and Mailbox). For Teams and SharePoint, we would have to analyze permissions of all sites and objects which will reduce job performance.
But you are still required to buy licenses for all users (in your tenant) accessing a SharePoint site. External SharePoint users do not require a license.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo36 ... tml?ver=60

Microsoft SharePoint Online and on-premises Microsoft SharePoint personal sites
Additionally, each user in your Microsoft 365 subscription (or on-premises deployment) that has been granted access to team, communication, collaboration and other non-personal SharePoint sites that you plan to back up must be licensed.

Best,
Fabian

[kurt]

Thanks for the confirmation. I saw that and sent it to the Sales Reps at Veeam but they still insist that I only need the minimum 10. Veeam needs to communicate this with them.

[JaySt]

aha! so regarding the shared sharepoint sites & teams part of things, it's more a EULA kind of requirement instead of it being enforced by the software (because of big impact on performance when reading the permissions for this). Just good to know.

[Mildur]

@kurt
Can you please send me your sales contact in a private message?

@JaySt
I‘ll get some more information tomorrow. But yes, we don‘t track such license usage (amount of internal users with access to a SharePoint site) in the software, even if it‘s required to be licensed.

Best,
Fabian