Reduce costs after free enterprise plus offer.

[deesloop]

I need to upgrade from 10 to 14 processors however I'm getting really stung by having taken the free
upgrade to B&R Ent plus. It's bitterly disappointing and it's only now I understand the ploy Veeam used
to extract as much cash as possible. Things are so bad that adding 4 processor licenses is costing more
than I spent when I signed up to V5 intially all those years ago (what reward for loyalty?)

I am thinking of rejigging my setup so that I dont waste 2 processor license by backing up Veeam server
also. Are there any other clever ways of reducing licensing costs?

I'm now actively looking for an alternative to VEeam and am having discussions with NAKIVO next week.
I'm sure there are plenty here who will defend Veeam to the hilt and I do like the product however
I cant help feeling a little disappointed. Has anyone been similarly caught out by the "free" upgrade?

[lando_uk]

I don't get it, why would you waist 2 sockets backing up the veeam server?

You could create some nifty scripts that migrate your VMs on to less hosts during backups and then move them back once finished.

[fraack]

Do you have your VBR server running on a single seperate hypervisor host?

You could use Veeam Endpoint Backup to backup your VBR server for example.

BTW nobody enforced you to upgrade your license model. I have many customers who saw this promo as a real gift from Veeam

[jmmarton]

I know of a customer that is downgrading from Ent. Plus to Ent. because they aren't getting the full value of Plus and have a limited budget. If you speak with your reseller you may be able to do something when it comes time to renew your existing licenses, then after downgrading the extra sockets could be purchased as just Ent.

Joe

[deesloop]

We have 2 sites A & B and a DR shed if you like.
Veeam lives in thd DR shed on a small esx ckuster.
It backs ups A & B but I also want a copy of the B & R server
So that requires an additional license. I could I guess move the B&R server into site A.
Then backup it up to site B which would reduce the license requirement.

That said I was advise this wouldvimpact on preformance as the writing is further from the storage.

I did actually think about scripts, ESX lets you run tasks but I dont know how to start a backup job when a ESX task has completed.
Care to point me at some samples to dissect?

Thanks

And yes nobody forced me to take the upgrade, thats totally true. It's just slightly disingenuous I feel.
I also dont believe I use the full features of Ent plus so that maybe worth a look at.

[jmmarton]

Yeah I'd only worry about a VBR instance in the DR site if you also use replication, in which case that instance would only perform replication jobs. Otherwise for backup I'd have an instance in Site A or B which does that. For a bit more HA, have another instance in the other site that's installed but not configured. You can then do a file copy job to copy the VBR config backup from the production instance to the standby instance in the other site. That way in the event of a failure you're back up as quickly as you can restore a config backup. And none of that requires additional licensing.

Joe

[slos]

If your Veeam configuration backups are successful then you are getting a backup of your B&R Server.

Find a piece of hardware that you would never expect to have to install Veeam B&R to under any circumstances what so ever. Then install B&R to it and restore the configuration backup.

From what I can gather about your environment my point is that in the time it takes to deploy a VM from a template [or just install B&R to an available non-domain joined PC for example], give it the same hostname, ip, domain join [or not], you can ‘restore’ your B&R server to full functionality with a new instance of windows in a small amount of time. In a disaster situation where the B&R server needs a restore you would need to do the anyways in order to restore the VM from the backup that you are currently taking.

No matter if you are in the camp that believes that the B&R server should be physical or virtual with a server or workstation OS the instance of windows is totally expendable; the configuration backup is not.

The machine that hosts B&R should only host B&R.

[deesloop]

The B&R machine does backups and replicas.
The backup run Mo, We & Fr
Replicas Tue Thur & Sat.

Moving it from the shed to site A would save 2 processor licenses, but I guess I like the idea of a replica in site B just in case
Perhaps endpoint backup is the answer. I'll need to igve it some thought and look at migrating to Enterprise (non plus) version.

There was an article explaining the differences but I cant recall it.

[jmmarton]

https://www.veeam.com/backup-version-st ... rison.html

Joe