Check license status

[CvBarney]

We want to automaticly check if the license has enough sockets to match the number of sockets of our ESXi nodes. Is there a way to check (with Powershell/cli) how many sockets are available? And more important: how many sockets are in use (excluding host which are excluded from the license) and available so we can set a trigger for an alert when (for example) only 2 licenses are available.

I didn't find anything about this in the Powershell guide, so I hope there is another way to retrieve this.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Christian,

There is no way to setup such alarm within the GUI, but you can review the current license usage and export it to Excel (if needed) via Enterprise Manager or Veeam Backup console.

And more important: how many sockets are in use (excluding host which are excluded from the license) and available so we can set a trigger for an alert when (for example) only 2 licenses are available.

If I got you right, you would like to reserve Veeam licenses? How often do you add new hosts to your virtual infrastructure? I would appreciate if you could clarify the use case for this alarm.

As to your question about retrieving this data through PowerShell, then, as far as I'm aware, it is not possible either.

Thanks for the feedback!

[CvBarney]

Hi Vitaliy,

There is no way to setup such alarm within the GUI, but you can review the current license usage and export it to Excel (if needed) via Enterprise Manager or Veeam Backup console.

That's not what we want. We manage several IT infrastructure environments for our customers and therefore we have developed a central backup status portal (because VEEAM is not the only backup product we manage). It has occurred a few time that hosts are added but no additional VEEAM licenses, and that resulted in some failed jobs the next day. So we want to know at any time for ALL our customers if they have enough licenses for their hosts. And additional for some customers a trigger/threshold if 2 or 0 licenses left is reached. And this has to shown in our central backup portal, so we need it from a source in a scripted way.

As to your question about retrieving this data through PowerShell, then, as far as I'm aware, it is not possible either.

Powershell was an example. Were is this information stored and how can we retrieve it, from the database? We don't want to use the Enterprise manager for this.

What I mean is this the information shown by "Licensed hosts" in the VEEAM B&R console:
- Licensed
- Used
- Remaining

Thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

So we want to know at any time for ALL our customers if they have enough licenses for their hosts. And additional for some customers a trigger/threshold if 2 or 0 licenses left is reached. And this has to shown in our central backup portal, so we need it from a source in a scripted way.

Thank you for the clarification, that really helps! But I still have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

How would you like to receive these alarms about exceeding the configured threshold of available licenses? What if we send you an email notification or SNMP trap with this information, will that solve your current problem? Or you would prefer to see this data in the GUI as well?

On top of that, are there any other parts of Veeam B&R you would like to have an alarm for?

[quote="CvBarney""]Powershell was an example. Were is this information stored and how can we retrieve it, from the database? We don't want to use the Enterprise manager for this.

What I mean is this the information shown by "Licensed hosts" in the VEEAM B&R console:
- Licensed
- Used
- Remaining[/quote]
This information is stored in the database, but I cannot assist you with the SQL query (not an expert).

[CvBarney]

Thank you for the clarification, that really helps! But I still have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

No problem at all, I appreciate your help! And I hope the product will be improved with this feedback.

How would you like to receive these alarms about exceeding the configured threshold of available licenses? What if we send you an email notification or SNMP trap with this information, will that solve your current problem? Or you would prefer to see this data in the GUI as well?

Email notification will be great for a ticketing system and admin purposes, SNMP will be better for a monitoring system. So if it's easy to include an email alert that will be great.
But include this in the VEEAM Powershell commandset will be better for our current situation. We use Powershell to gather the status of all the backup jobs and we want the same for the license count.

On top of that, are there any other parts of Veeam B&R you would like to have an alarm for?

Pfew, good question! Not at this moment, but I'll discuss this internally and keep you posted.

This information is stored in the database, but I cannot assist you with the SQL query (not an expert).

That's not necessary, we can solve that ourselves I have found the table "LicensedHosts" and I assume the row "is_licensed" will be 0 for certain hosts if there is a shortage of licenses?
Can you say something about the frequency of the updates for that table? Every hour of only when backup jobs are running? In other words: if a new ESXi host is added to the cluster and no VEEAM licenses are added, when is this host displayed in that DB table?

But more important: how can we at this moment gather the current license count (remaining sockets), because I couldn't find that information in the database. And that information will be very useful for our central backup dashboard to monitor the license count for every customer.

[Vitaliy S.]

Pfew, good question! Not at this moment, but I'll discuss this internally and keep you posted.

Thanks for that! Also since you have a central backup portal, could you please share how do you report on backed up VMs/backup job status for your clients? Have you already build you own reports for that?

I have found the table "LicensedHosts" and I assume the row "is_licensed" will be 0 for certain hosts if there is a shortage of licenses?

If I were a developer, I would have done like you said

But can you say the frequency of the updates for that table? Every hour of only when backup jobs are running? In other words: if a new ESXi host is added to the cluster and no VEEAM licenses are added, when is this host displayed in that DB table?

License key is assigned to the host only when you start backing up/replicating VMs from that host.

But more important: how can we at this moment gather the current license count (remaining sockets), because I couldn't find that information in the database. And that information will be very useful for our central backup dashboard to monitor the license count for every customer.

Let me see if I can clarify this information for you with our dev team.

Thanks!