Rental Veeam Backup & Replication License

For the MSP Backup scenario where the SP controls the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure on the tenant side and manages tenant machines, the SP must install a Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license on the tenant Veeam backup server. The Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license is a full license with the license expiration date set according to the chosen rental program (normally from 1 to 12 months from the date of issue) that can be automatically updated upon expiration. To learn more, see Updating Licenses.

The Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license is consumed by protected workloads. A protected workload is a workload that has at least one restore point created by a tenant in the past 31 days.

With the Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license, Veeam Backup & Replication processes workloads of the following types:

• Virtual Machines — VMs processed by backup and replication jobs configured in Veeam Backup & Replication.
• Workstations — physical or virtual machines processed by backup jobs configured in the Workstation edition of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows or Veeam Agent for Linux.
• Servers — physical or virtual machines processed by backup jobs configured in the Server edition of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows or Veeam Agent for Linux.
• File Shares — NAS and file shares processed by file share backup jobs configured in Veeam Backup & Replication.
• Cloud VMs — resources processed by backup policies configured in Veeam Backup for AWS, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure or Veeam Backup for Google Cloud integrated with Veeam Backup & Replication.
• Applications — application servers processed by Veeam Plug-ins for Enterprise Applications.

Every protected workload consumes instances in the license. The number of instances that a workload requires depends on the workload type. For more information, see Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Guide.

License consumption does not depend on the number of jobs that process protected workloads. For example, if a tenant processes the same VM with multiple jobs, this VM is still considered as 1 protected workload.

Protected workloads are counted regardless of the type of jobs (backup or replication) that process these workloads. For example, if a tenant processes the same VM with a backup job and a replication job, this VM is considered as 1 protected workload.

New Workloads

To provide more flexibility and introduce a trial period for tenant workload processing, Veeam Backup & Replication offers the concept of new workloads. New workloads are workloads that were processed for the first time within the current calendar month. For example, Veeam Backup & Replication processes 7 machines in November. In December, Veeam Backup & Replication processes the same 7 machines plus 2 new machines. In December, these 2 machines are considered as new workloads.

New workloads are counted separately from existing workloads and do not consume instances in the license during the month when they were introduced. On the first day of the new month, the number of instances related to new workloads is added to the total number of used instances, and the new instances counter is reset. New workloads are included in a license usage report for informational purposes.

License Usage with Multiple Veeam Backup Servers

The SP can install one Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license on multiple tenant Veeam backup servers. When a license file is assigned to a Veeam backup server, this backup server receives an Installation ID. An Installation ID is a unique identifier that is used to track the fact of using the same license file on multiple installations of Veeam Backup & Replication.

A Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license installed on multiple tenant Veeam backup servers counts all managed VMs that are processed on those backup servers. For example, if the SP installs a Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license for 10 VMs on 2 different tenant backup servers, they can manage 10 VMs in total (not 10 VMs for each tenant and 20 VMs in total).

License Expiration

Veeam Backup & Replication offers a 60-day grace period to ensure a smooth license update procedure. Upon license expiration, the tenant can use the Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license to process all workloads for the duration of the grace period.

During the grace period, Veeam Backup & Replication will show a warning that the Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license must be updated.

• During the first month of a grace period, a message box is displayed once a week when the Veeam Backup & Replication console opens.
• During the second month, a message box is displayed each time the Veeam Backup & Replication console opens.

After the grace period is over, tenant workloads are no longer processed. To continue using Veeam Backup & Replication, the SP must obtain a new Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license.

Exceeding License Limit

In some situations, the number of used instances may exceed the license limit. For example, this may happen when some machines are temporarily processed for testing reasons and stop being processed after some time.

For the Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license, Veeam Backup & Replication offers the 60-day grace period. Within this period, the Rental Veeam Backup & Replication license allows the tenant to use up to 20 more instances or 20% more instances than specified in the license (depending on which resulting number of instances is greater), plus the number of new instances from the previous calendar month.

Consider the following examples:

• Example 1. The licensed number of instances is 50, and during the previous calendar month the tenant used 10 new instances.

In this example, the license limit may be exceeded by 30 instances. This number includes 10 new instances from the previous month and 20 additional instances (20% of 50 licensed instances makes 10 instances, and 20 is greater than 10).

• Example 2. The licensed number of instances is 200, and during the previous calendar month the tenant used 10 new instances.

In this example, the license limit may be exceeded by 50 instances. This number includes 10 new instances from the previous month and 40 additional instances (20% of 200 licensed instances makes 40 instances, and 40 is greater than 20).

Until the license limit is exceeded for more than 20% or 20 instances, plus the number of new instances from the previous month, Veeam Backup & Replication continues to process all protected workloads with no restrictions. Newly added workloads are processed on the First In First Out basis when free license slots appear due to older workloads no longer being processed. When the license is exceeded by more than 10% or 10 instances, Veeam Backup & Replication displays a notification with the number of exceeded instances and the number of instances by which the license can be further exceeded. Veeam Backup & Replication displays this warning once a week when backup console opens.

If the license limit is exceeded for more than 20% or 20 instances, plus the number of new instances from the previous month, all workloads that use instances exceeding the licensed number plus the allowed increase are no longer processed. Every time the backup console opens, Veeam Backup & Replication displays a notification with the number of instances by which the license is exceeded.