Is the switch to instance licensing mandatory for U4 ?

[CaptainPistache]

Hello Veeam community,

I want to update our Veeam infrastructure from 9.5 U3 to U4 (B&R + One).
Actually we have a perpetual hosts based license. Will I have to switch to instance licensing (that would be more expensive) if I install the update ?

Thanks for your answers.

Cheers,
Captain

[Shestakov]

Hello,

No, perpetual socket-based license is not going anywhere. Moreover, it gets some perks in U4 (see Licensing section of the What's New).

Only those with VM-based subscription will need to update their license to the new format (this does not change the price though).

Thanks!

[CaptainPistache]

Hi Nikita,

Ok, great, thanks.

Have a good weekend,
Captain

[Shestakov]

No problem, once you have a question, don't hesitate asking.
Have a good weekend!

[veremin]

Just out of curiosity - can you provide information regarding how many sockets you have? How much you're paying for it at the moment? And how many VMs are running on those hosts?

Want to understand better the remark regarding instance-based license being more expensive option.

Thanks!

[Gostev]

I mean, it's hard to imagine a scenario where renewing existing socket-based license is more expensive then buying brand new subscription instead now, if he did not have licenses already, then it would be different - based on our big data, at least half of existing customer base would have benefited from subscription if they were buying today.

[nmdange]

Is it possible to use both socket licensing and instance licensing for VMs on the same backup server? That is, have some hypervisor hosts assigned a socket license, and other hosts use instance licensing for the VMs being backed up? We have mostly dense hypervisor hosts where socket licensing makes sense, but we have some smaller hosts that only have a handful of VMs and doing per instance licensing would make more sense.

[Gostev]

No, in presence of sockets in the license file all VMs will use a socket-based license.

[ekisner]

Hi there, I'm getting conflicting impressions from what I'm reading and I wanted to clarify it. Will perpetual licensing for CPU sockets still be a thing for B&R on-prem, or am I going to be forced into instance licensing? Or is it only if I upgrade to U4?

To be clear on my position, this instance licensing looks horrible and dramatically more expensive for those of us with high consolidation rates. It also looks like a serious pain in the ass to have to ensure I have enough instances free before I spin up more VMs and very likely end up waiting far longer than I'm willing to if I am indeed short on licenses.

It's absolutely enough to make me evaluate other products when our licensing is up for renewal. Which is disappointing because I'd hate to see such a fantastic product become more trouble than it's worth.

[Shestakov]

Hi Erik,
Perpetual socket-based license remains, you will not be forced to the instance-based license. Only those with VM-based subscription will need to update their license to the new format
However it worth to check if new license option indeed is going to be more expensive than the existing one. Have you made such calculations?
Thanks!
P.S. I've moved your question to the related topic. Please review the posts above.

[ekisner]

Thank you for the re-assurance! I apologize for not searching first for the existing topic.

Our consolidation ratio averages 21:1 (backed up servers, not counting dev VMs), and it has gone as high as 26:1. Not only would 3 instance packs per host have the same initial cost as 2 perpetual socket licenses, but the renewals on the socket licenses (basic support) would be cheaper on an on-going basis, if my memory on the renewal costs is accurate.

[nmdange]

No, in presence of sockets in the license file all VMs will use a socket-based license.

So it could only be done with separate license files, which means separate backup servers and enterprise manager (if we use that for licensing distribution). Would be a nice feature to allow one server to use both license models for VMs

[lando_uk]

When i update to U4, will my existing perpetual .lic file still work or will i be forced to create a new one?

[Shestakov]

Yes, it will still work.