Licence management and new Veeam backup server

[Frosty]

Having bought ourselves a shiny new physical backup server, I'm preparing to move Veeam from the old to the new.
I have read several KB articles and have a reasonable understanding of the process.
What isn't yet clear to me is precisely how the licensing of Veeam will work during the changeover.
CURRENTLY -- licensed for 6 CPUs on 3 x vSphere ESXi hosts
FUTURE -- we will be needing only 4 CPUs on 2 x HyperV hosts
How do I get there from here without violating terms of software licensing?

[Frosty]

I suppose it might go something like:
* stand up new Veeam server with 3 x vSphere ESXi hosts and then stabilise
* move all VMs off one ESXi host and remove that host from Veeam
* add one HyperV host to Veeam
* migrate some VMs from ESXi to HyperV
* remove another ESXi host and add the 2nd HyperV
etc

[Mildur]

Hi Frosty

Yes, you can do that. But removing the host is not required. Revoking license from the old host will be sufficient. Make sure that you are not protecting any VM on an ESXi host and you can revoke the license from this host.

Or ask your regional Veeam representative for a temporary license to cover workloads on all 5 hosts during migration. The second option makes only sense if you are expecting a longer migration period and needs approval from your local Veeam team.

Best,
Fabian

[Frosty]

Just wanted to say Thanks -- I finally had time today to do some of this -- I moved all my running VMs to host ESXI3 and shut down hosts ESXI1 and ESXI2 -- then I took your advice and revoked the Veeam socket licences from those 2 x ESXI hosts -- I added my HyperV Cluster into the Veeam Backup Infrastructure area, ran my first HyperV backup, which worked -- lastly I went back into the licensing and checked my socket licences.
I can see that 2 socket licences were automatically assigned to host HYPERV1 but nothing assigned to HYPERV2. I guess that's because I only have 1 HyperV VM and it is running on HYPERV1. So presumably when I add more VMs and HYPERV2 gets used, the 2 free socket licences will auto-add to that host.
So yeah, thanks for the advice, all seems good so far!