Update 3 to Update 4 - rebuild all jobs?

[bhagen]

When we moved from 9.5 to 9.5U3, I basically had to rebuild and restart all my jobs because of the scope of the update; it felt like we'd moved from 9.5 to 10.0. We also had buy another NAS because we didn't have enough space to keep the 9.5 backups (restore points) *and* create all new restore points for every backup. It was painful.

Is the update from U3 to U4 (or U4a, which may arrive sooner than later according to yesterday's email update from @Goestev) going to be this drastic? I've read thru the change log and the known issues, and I don't see any indications of this, but...I didn't see any when we updated to U3 either, so I must have missed something.

I realize that in addition to any "job" changes, the move to U4 is also going to require us to update our licensing to the new scheme, but I *think* that will be pretty straight forward.

I thought I'd check here, because I don't want to get caught with my pants down this time!

[foggy]

Could you please tell what was the actual reason why you had to rebuild the jobs? It is true that recent Veeam B&R releases, even though being called 'updates', are pretty big ones, but that doesn't mean you need to rebuild anything. Even if you need to move to another backup server (which is typically not the case, since you can just upgrade your existing installation), then built-in configuration backup and restore functionality allows to keep everything configured as before.

[bhagen]

I honestly don't remember now why I had to rebuild my jobs; it's been a while.

Not sure it's relevant at this point, though; I'm simply wondering if I'm going to have to make changes to my existing jobs (which are working fine) when I update from U3 to U4.

[foggy]

No, you do not have to make changes. We always try to make sure upgrades don't affect anything that works fine.

[bhagen]

Ok then; I have it in writing. As soon as I figure out the new licensing scheme (as far as I can tell, upgrading to U4 *requires* us to migrate from "Perpetual socket-based licenses" to "Subscription Instance licensing"), I'll update to U4. If I have issues, I'll be sure to post here!

[veremin]

As soon as I figure out the new licensing scheme (as far as I can tell, upgrading to U4 *requires* us to migrate from "Perpetual socket-based licenses" to "Subscription Instance licensing"), I'll update to U4.

Can you provide us with the source of your knowledge? I'm wondering because you can still use your perpetual socket-based license to protect virtual workloads. It's just per-VM and per-agent licenses that need to be replaced with instance one.

So can you tell us what type of workloads you're currently protecting and with what exact license(s)? Based on that, we can suggest further steps.

Thanks!

[bhagen]

When I open my account portal, I'm met with the following notice. To me, this is saying I can't update to U4 without updating to a subscription Instance license:

"NEW Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 4
Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 4 and Veeam Agents 3.0 use a NEW subscription licensing model called Veeam Instance Licensing. Your new Veeam Instance Licenses are now available for download!"

I have perpetual, Enterprise, socket-based licenses for all my vmware hosts, and I have subscription Windows Agent licenses for my physical servers. I'm using the Veeam console to manage backups for both vm's and physical boxes.

[veremin]

In the licensing portal you should have two licenses available: perpetual socket license and new subscription instance license (to cover your agent needs).

You can merge two licenses into single one and assign resulting file to your backup server. Socket portion will be used for everything virtual, instance one - for everything else.

Thanks!

[bhagen]

Thanks; I'll give that a try. After doing that, how will we buy licenses to cover more esxi hosts? I'm still confused as to what an "instance" actually is.

[tpayton]

how will we buy licenses to cover more esxi hosts?

As you already have perpetual licenses, you would most likely want to purchase additional socket based perpetual licenses.

I'm still confused as to what an "instance" actually is.

More information regarding Instance based licensing can be found here: https://www.veeam.com/faq.html

Most relevant to you will be the conversion rate for instances to cover your Veeam Agent needs. The conversion table can be found in this section: https://www.veeam.com/licensing-policy. ... sing-Terms