Restrictions of NAS backup in Community Edition?

[mixmax]

Hi,

just a licensing question, please. The community edition is announced as to work PARTIALLY with NAS shares.

What does that mean in detail? What are the restricions?

Many thanks!

[Natalia Lupacheva]

Hi,

You can find full editions comparison here.
For NAS backup, it's

Protect and recover NAS file shares (SMB and NFS) effectively and at scale. Back up directly
to Veeam repositories for short and long-term storage objectives. The first 500GB in each share is free with additional capacity licensed with VUL at 500GB per license. Long-term file version archival support for NAS data is not available with Community edition.

Thanks!

[mixmax]

So this means with Community edition I am able to backup 500 GB NAS-data with each backup job?

And over 500 GB I need a "VUL" license for each 500 GB?

And looking in your linked PDF-file I wonder that "Standard", "Enterprise", "Enterprise PLUS" do NOT include backups from NAS???

Thanks

[Mildur]

You will have 10 VULs in the community edition. With this 10 VULs, you can backup 10 Workloads.
You can Backup as many GB you want in a single backup Job. When the backup Job is running, Veeam counts the protected frontend Data and calculate the needed VULs for that.

If you do only NAS Backups, you have VULs for 10x 500GB. If you have other workload, you need to share the 10 VULs with NAS Backups:
A VM is 1 VUL
A Server Agent is 1 VUL
A Workstation Agent is 3WS for 1 VUL
500GB NAS Backups is 1VUL.

Veeam Universal License – FAQ:
https://www.veeam.com/de/faq.html

[wishr]

Hi Mixmax,

You can find more information about VUL here. Note the links at the bottom of the webpage. Also, there are lot's of topics on these forums where you can find more details.

Thanks

[mixmax]

OK. And if I configure a single NAS-backup-job in the Community edition, the maxium of backup-data in theory is 5 TB? (10 x VUL x 500 GB)

[wishr]

Correct, if you do not protect any other workloads. Plus you are getting the first 500 GB for each individual file share for free (no VULs are consumed).

[mixmax]

And why do Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise PLUS NOT have the option to backup from NAS?

I don`t understand...

[mixmax]

And what does

"Long-term file version archival support for NAS data is not available with Community edition."

mean?

[Mildur]

This means copying old File Versions to Object Storage

[mixmax]

What is the definition of "old" ? A sample would be nice. I do not understand the restriction.

[Mildur]

And why do Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise PLUS NOT have the option to backup from NAS?

I don`t understand...

NAS Backup needs a VUL License. Sockets doesn't have them.

But you will get a Free VUl License per each Socket. (Max 6 VUL per License)
With this complementary VULs on the socket license, you can backup your NAS Data.

I you have more data than this "complementary VULs x 500GB", You will need to buy a additional VUL License Package and merge it with your socket license to backup data from NAS.

[Mildur]

What is the definition of "old" ? A sample would be nice. I do not understand the restriction.

1. You create a Word Document and save it to the NAS --> current Version

2. NAS Backup Job backup the NAS Data

3. You edit the File on the next day and save it again:
3a) The new saved File is the "current version"
3b) The Word Document from the previous Day is the "old version" without the new changes from the new day

Veeam will den copy this "old version" from the last day to object storage.

[mixmax]

Many thanks for your nice explanations!

So in the community edition "NAS backup" is restricted that there are no incremental restore points but only ONE current backup?

[wishr]

No, with each job session, we are only backing up files that have changed since the previous backup job run, so at the end of the day, it's similar to the forever incremental backup approach unless you start a new backup chain manually.

The limitation in Community Edition is that you cannot use the "Keep previous file versions for" checkbox and thus cannot archive your old file versions to normal and object storage repositories.

Thanks

[mixmax]

Great forum support. Many thanks for your efforts !

[mixmax]

Last question to this topic please:

Will a VUL automatically be used if I backup more than 500 GB NAS or do I have to assign a VUL license to the NAS-backup-job-settings ?

[wishr]

Yes, it will be used automatically, and you can always see how many instances are consumed in the "View license information" view.

[mixmax]

Thank you very much!