your licensing sucks

[mmonroe]

It is probably worth noting that the big behemoth VMware made some very, very unpopular license changes with version 5.0. The changes upset us to point of writing to both VMware and our reseller that we would not move to or load ESX 5.0 until changes were made - period. Hyper-V had and has progressed to the point where VMware needed listen to customers else risk losing some of them.

I agree with much that has been said on this thread with regards to the portal and whatnot. Veeam needs to listen to customers on their licensing. Veeam needs to make money and we want Veeam to successful but things need to be fair and the customer needs to feel like they are cared for and getting a value with the product.

Veeam needs to take a lesson from ESX 5.0 and the licensing changes there and see how VMware handled things in 5.1. We have more backup options now versus 3-4 years ago.

[foggy]

We have been paying for support for 4 sockets on 2 hosts, which is what we have, and have tried to purchase a license for the additional host/2 sockets.
We've been told that the Veeam bundle we purchased already covered 6 sockets, but that we can only activate the final 2 sockets if we purchase support for the past 4.5 years for them.
...
I'm perfectly happy with the concept that if you let your support contract lapse and then reactivate it you have to pay a reactivation fee, but we've never paid for any support on these last 2 sockets that could have lapsed.

Tim, as far as I can see, this is not completely true, since initially you've purchased 6 sockets with maintenance and then opted to renew only 4 of them (I guess you can check this via licensing portal). So now your options are either to renew those 2 sockets with reactivation fee (which is not "purchase support for the past 4.5 years", though, I'm not sure how that fee is calculated) or buy a new license for 2 sockets with a year of maintenance. The first seems to be cheaper (I guess you were provided with particular numbers).

I'm not involved in sales, that's just how it was explained to me and just to communicate this to you in a probably more friendly manner, to make things clear.

[timbo]

Thanks @foggy

What I did was purchase 2 hosts with 4 sockets, asked my Veeam partner what the most cost effective backup solution was, and was told Veeam Backup Essentials. It was a fixed price, there was no option of purchasing just 4 sockets.

It was not explained to me that I should have been paying support for the licenses for the 2 unused sockets, and I can't buy a new license for 2 more sockets as Essentials has a limit of 6 sockets. To quote your rep - "Please be informed that Veeam Essentials products are intended for small business use and as such are limited to a maximum of 6 sockets per organization and you already have 6 sockets."

I'm actually taking the opportunity to trial other backup solutions from more helpful companies.

[Andreas Neufert]

Hi Tim, I found your order in our system. Looks like you bought a 6 socket bundle in 2011 which was the only option back in time to order Essentials. Later Veeam made this bundle more flexible and changed it to a 2 socket bundle which customers can buy 3x (still max 6 sockets). I think after that change, you renewed only 4 of your existing 6 sockets.

To sum up the options from the discussion above:
1) Let your partners distributor ask for a quote at our maintenance renewal team ( I saw some changes in the last day in our internal processes). Idea is to bring the licenses to the same level.
2) Together with maintenence team, the 2 licenses that are out of maintenance can maybe be destroied (you have to send a Letter of Destruction) and you can order additional 2 sockets. I would do this if the price of 1) is higher.

I am not from maintenance or sales team. Hope that both options can be done and processed as explaint.

[Andreas Neufert]

Maybe as well helpful to open a licensing ticket at our support to document the conversation with Veeam.

[VladV]

When we first purchased Veeam back in 2013 we went with Veeam Essentials Enterprise 2 socket bundle and purchased 2 at first to cover 2 x 2 socket hosts. After 2 years we bought another 2 socket bundle maxing out the limit for essentials without paying for previous support or reinstatement fees.

It seems to me that your reseller din't inform you about this possibility and went with 6 sockets from the start. Either way, Veeam should investigate and fix this.

Scratch that. Just seen that it was changed and became more flexible in 2011.

[Andreas Neufert]

Hi Vlad, back in 2011 there was "only" a 6 Socket Essentials Bundle. As I wrote this was later changed to a more flexible option.