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Hey everyone,

Starting the beginning of January 2021 we're going to see Veeam simplify the license offerings available to customers.

 

Historically Veeam have always offered a "per socket" perpetual licensing model, which was great when we were just considering protecting our vSphere & Hyper-V infrastructure, but as Veeam has grown and produced additional feature capabilities such as NAS Backup, Cloud-native Backups for AWS and Azure and Physical server and workstation protection options, this licensing model hasn't suited them all.

 

Then Veeam introduced the Veeam Universal License (VUL) subscription, streamlining the licensing experience for customers by offering a "per workload" backup model, allowing customers to mix and match different products as part of their overall Veeam licensing. This license becomes increasingly appealing as customers wish to test adoption of different clouds, they protect their workloads, regardless of whether they are physical, cloud or virtual.

 

Earlier this year, Veeam then took the next step and introduced Veeam Universal License Perpetual to customers. This offers the same benefits of VUL subscription to customers that prefer the traditional "Capex" model. Customers can use this to pay for VUL Perpetual upfront and with annual ongoing maintenance instead of a complete annual Op-Ex approach.

 

While the VUL license options, whether transacted via subscription or perpetually, seem straightforward for new customers:   Buy one fully featured license and use it wherever. It may create confusion for customers who have been in the Veeam eco-system for some time. Although the VUL licenses are fully featured with full support, existing customers may be accustomed to selecting from 3 different tiers of the old socket license to determine which version is best and then may need to pay hefty uplift prices if additional features are required at a later date or 24x7 support is now required. VUL solves this conflict.

 

What “edition” is the VUL license?   While Veeam customers have been trained that the “Enterprise Plus” edition is the top tier, aligning back to the early days of VMware editions, the VUL license really has no edition designation.  It is fully featured, with new features, capabilities and support for new environments being added regularly. The VUL license, offers all of the capabilities of the Enterprise Plus edition socket, plus much more including support for:  cloud workloads, physical workloads, NAS, enterprise apps and even more.  

 

In 2021, to align with the VUL offerings Veeam is now going to be offering just one “edition” of the legacy Per Socket license option for Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam Availability Suite, Enterprise Plus with Production (24x7) Support. While this per-socket license isn’t as capable as the VUL license, it does eliminate much of the confusion of having multiple editions.  

 

Which is right for you? Well, most often, the answer is going to be the VUL license. It provides the most capability supporting all the features of all supported hypervisors, physical workloads, cloud workloads, NAS and even more things in the future.   Not to mention the added capabilities across multi-cloud ecosystems. Furthermore, VUL is the most portable solution available, allowing you to apply the licenses to your environment and meet your evolving backup and recovery needs as you see fit. The Socket license is only for on premises and is limited to supporting only 2 hypervisors with no cloud, physical or NAS support.  

 

Now, let’s see what else is in store for us at the v11 launch.
 

FAQs:

  • I already have socket licenses, do I have to upgrade?

No, there are no plans to require customers to migrate to a higher version of edition or support contract. Even if purchasing additional socket licenses

  • I have an expired support contract, can I renew at my same version?

If within a year of deactivation, these can be renewed.

  • I migrated to VUL, can I move back?

No, you can purchase new licenses if this suits moving forward.

  • What happens if I don't renew VUL Perpetual?

Without a support contract you won't be entitled to receive technical support, licensing assistance or any software updates.

  • Can I mix and match VUL Perpetual & VUL Subscription?

No, not within the same environment.

For LATAM is very common that the customer think in perpetual licences, the customers step by step are understanding that VUL licence give them flexibility and scalability in yours infrastructure. Especially in this era, where the business is so changeable, today you have workload on-prem, tomorrow you grow up to the cloud, etc.

Very good Topic @MicoolPaul :santa:

Since VMware also put some limits on # cores per socket (from a licensing perspective), I think we will start to see some changes away from very high core count per socket solutions which will, in turn, make VUL even more favorable.

Since VMware also put some limits on # cores per socket (from a licensing perspective), I think we will start to see some changes away from very high core count per socket solutions which will, in turn, make VUL even more favorable.

Agreed and a great point, we’ve already seen it with Microsoft too in their weird and wonderful ways of core licensing (Windows, SQL Server etc).

I always say to customers, I remember purchasing per socket licensing when my infrastructure was 4 cores per socket, the next generation I upgraded to 12 cores per socket. I gained 3x the concurrency per socket but paid nothing extra to Veeam or VMware and in actuality downsized my socket licensing because I needed fewer hosts.

@MicoolPaul thanks for your excellent post! I definitely will it read again next year.

I do not like licensing at all - similar to all vendors! Most often it is a very difficult topic during purchase/update/upgrade.  

I hope it is getting easier with the next release. For example it is really a limitation that it is not possible to mix perpetual editions within the same VBR server. At least it is possible to mix perpetual with VUL.

 

This is no longer true “and after 10 years your license will lapse entirely”

See here > https://forums.veeam.com/post394968.html#p394968

This also needs correcting “Without a support contract you won't be entitled to new major version updates”

Should be “any software updates” as per https://www.veeam.com/licensing-policy.html

This is no longer true “and after 10 years your license will lapse entirely”

See here > https://forums.veeam.com/post394968.html#p394968

This also needs correcting “Without a support contract you won't be entitled to new major version updates”

Should be “any software updates” as per https://www.veeam.com/licensing-policy.html

Thanks for the feedback @Anton Gostev, there’s some Veeam documentation that needs updating then! I’ll feedback to the relevant people & update the post.

On the one hand licensing gets easier, on the other hand the new model won't fit for every environment (as always); not every customer has a need for E+ and production support.

Regarding the flexibility; you could also see it the other way around. With sockets you were flexible as you could backup as much VMs as you could host. With per-vm licensing customers could decide against backup of systems to save money.

On the one hand licensing gets easier, on the other hand the new model won't fit for every environment (as always); not every customer has a need for E+ and production support.

Regarding the flexibility; you could also see it the other way around. With sockets you were flexible as you could backup as much VMs as you could host. With per-vm licensing customers could decide against backup of systems to save money.

Of course, some scenarios will become unexpectedly cheaper for a customer too which will feel wrong such as if someone has a giant 4 socket SQL database that needs Storage Snapshots to maintain performance but is the only thing running, they’d benefit from the option of a lower instance count of VUL. But I’ve got customers that would be worse off as they have got time of day only VMs and I see densities of 400 VMs to 6 sockets.

 

We also can’t deny with densities of 64 cores in a single socket that we’re approaching a level of density not foreseen when the socket license model was first designed. My first encounter of Veeam was protecting a dual socket quad core system, crazy how high these core counts are climbing!

 

I would like to see more information for customers who have the legacy “per socket” license and migration to VUL.  I have customers that would benefit from the Veeam Enterprise Plus features but can’t use them if there on the older per socket perpetual licensing model.

I would like to see more information for customers who have the legacy “per socket” license and migration to VUL.  I have customers that would benefit from the Veeam Enterprise Plus features but can’t use them if there on the older per socket perpetual licensing model.

Hi, customers can look to migrate their existing per socket license to VUL if they wish, they can also purchase additional sockets of the current socket edition & support they’re on. In the original blog post I also mentioned that it’s possible to still purchase socket licensing of Veeam Enterprise Plus with 24x7 support anyway so that should cover your scenario you’ve mentioned. But definitely speak to your Veeam Partner for more information, or if you’re a Veeam Partner yourself the ProPartner portal and your Veeam Account Manager has a huge amount of information! :relaxed:

Today Veeam send mails about this.

It’s coming real.

Today Veeam send mails about this.

It’s coming real.

Yep Veeam are taking the next step regarding licensing. A key point that people keep missing is that they offer VUL as a perpetual license as an alternative to subscription.

 

I remember specing servers 8-10 years ago with dual quad core CPUs and now we can get 64 cores in a socket?!

 

Yes it won’t please everyone (I know customers with 100:1 VM to Sockets) but it just shows how much of a steal they were getting before!

I’m still not 100% confident with this decision, as I think both licensing options do have their right to exist; with different advantages and disadvantages. There’s an existing discussion in the R&D forums if you want to give feedback:

https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-replication-f2/phasing-out-our-socket-based-licensing-t74168.html

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