Managing licenses with two Veeam Server

[storageguy]

Hi,

I have a customer situation where they have two Veeam Servers, one at their primary site and the other at the secondary site. The Veeam server at primary site is used for backup jobs whereas the Veeam server at the secondary site will be used for the replication jobs. Both Veaam servers are physical and also serves as backup repository. Now my question is, how does the Veeam licensing works this kind of setup? They use the same licenses for both Veeam servers. How they can manage the licenses because both Veeam servers are using the same license?

They both backup and replicate the same VMs. Does it count as one instance?

Thanks

[Mildur]

You need to install Veeam Enterprise Manager, add the license and both vbr server.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

The Enterprise Manager will then assign the licenses for both vbr server.

[storageguy]

What about if one Veeam server does the backup job and the other Veeam server does the replication job of the same VMs, does it count as one license instance?

[Andreas Neufert]

Yes, if you use Enterprise Manager to host the license.

[Mildur]

What about if one Veeam server does the backup job and the other Veeam server does the replication job of the same VMs, does it count as one license instance?

Yes, if you use Enterprise Manager to host the license.

Are you sure, that this would work?
A limitation is, that you cannot two vbr server, which are managing the same objects.
Adding the first vbr server with a backup job and VM1 and adding a second vbr Server with a replica job with VM1 would be one of this documented limitations.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

You must not add backup servers that have identical objects in Veeam Backup & Replication configuration databases. Data collection will fail when Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager attempts to insert duplicate records about identical objects to its configuration database. Identical objects can appear in Veeam Backup & Replication configuration databases in the following cases:

- Jobs on several backup servers process the same machines.
- The same backups are imported to the Veeam Backup & Replication console on several backup servers (for example, the same backup repository is shared between several backup servers, backups are copied between different machines and these machines are added to the Veeam Backup & Replication console on different backup servers, and so on).

[Andreas Neufert]

Thanks for pointing this out. For Socket licenses it is working for sure. Let me check regarding Instance Licensing.

[Andreas Neufert]

Just a small update here. It looks like the unsupported situation referes only to the sitaution where you clone the Backup & Replication Server and by that leverage same background IDs. If you use 2 free installed Backup & Replication Server with one Enterprise Manager to process the same vcenter and VMs should work.

We are checking with our QA so that we did not missed anything and will clarify the documentation better.

[Mildur]

Thank you Andreas

[veremin]

Double checked internally - the paragraph refers to the cloned backup server case only, documentation will be updated and the point regarding multiple jobs processing the same objects on different backup servers will be removed. Thank you for bringing this; much appreciated!

[Andreas Neufert]

Documentation was updated: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110