Licensing: Instance Calculation

[Nick-SAC]

In the new Instance Licensing scheme:
Does 1 VM – regardless of the OS running on it – always consume 1 Instance?

I think it does but I ask because the descriptions at the below pages seem to be open to interpretation.

https://www.veeam.com/licensing-policy.html
Definitions:
Licensed Object:
Server:
A physical or virtual host, where the software is installed with “Server” product functionality enabled.



https://www.veeam.com/licensing-policy. ... conversion
Veeam Instance Licensing Conversion Table
Product Edition = Enterprise
[Protected Workload = # Instances]
VM (Hyper-V) = 1 Instance
Server = 1.5 Instances


So, for the purposes of the above calculation: is a VM running a Windows Server OS considered a Server (1.5 Instances) or just a VM (1 Instance)?

Thanks,
Nick

[Gostev]

This depends on how you will protect the VM in question.

It will consume as a VM if you use VM backup job (host-based), and as a Server if you use physical server backup job (agent-based). These are two distinct job types in Veeam. Even three actually, as agent-based jobs have two selectable sub-types (Server or Workstation), and this will also result in different number of instances consumed.

Aside of corner cases, for VMs you should always be using host-based backup, as agent-based protection is an extremely inefficient way to backup VMs.

[Nick-SAC]

Thanks Gostev,

That's what I thought... although I hadn't even considered the possibility of doing a VM with an Agent, so it's good that you mentioned it.

Nick