This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Licensing

To work with Veeam Backup & Replication, you must obtain a license key and install it on the backup server. If you do not install the license key, the product will operate in the Veeam Backup & Replication Community (free) Edition. For more information, see Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition.

Veeam licenses Veeam Backup & Replication in two ways: per instance and per socket.

You can use both instance and socket licenses. For more information, see Merging Licenses.

Instance Licensing

Veeam Backup & Replication can be licensed by the number of instances. Instances are units (or tokens) that you can use to protect your virtual, physical or cloud-based workloads. For more information, see Veeam Licensing Policy.

You must obtain a license with the total number of instances for workloads that you plan to protect in Veeam Backup & Replication.

Workloads that have been processed in the past 31 days are considered protected. Every protected workload consumes instances from the license scope. The number of instances that a workload requires depends on the workload type and product edition.

This licensing model allows you to obtain a license with a certain number of instances without knowing in advance what types of workloads you plan to protect. When a need arises, you can revoke instances from a protected workload, and reuse them to protect other workloads regardless of the workload type.

Veeam Backup & Replication keeps track of instances consumed by protected workloads. If the number of consumed instances exceeds the license limit, Veeam Backup & Replication displays a warning when you open the Veeam Backup & Replication console. For more information, see Exceeding License Limit.

Mind the following:

VM templates are regarded as protected VMs and consume license instances.

VMs and NAS shares processed with backup copy and tape jobs are not regarded as protected VMs and NAS shares and do not consume license instances. These types of jobs provide an additional protection level for VMs and NAS shares that are already protected with backup jobs.

VMs processed by snapshot-only jobs are regarded as protected VMs and consume license instances. Veeam Backup & Replication will revoke instances from these VMs if you re-add a storage array to the backup infrastructure.

For NAS share backup, there are the following peculiarities in calculating the number of license instances to consume:

If the NAS share is protected by more than one backup job, to calculate the size of the protected amount of data Veeam Backup & Replication multiplies the size of the NAS share source by the number of jobs.

For example, if a 270 GB NAS share is protected by two NAS backup jobs, the protected amount of data is multiplied by two:

270 GB x 2 = 540 GB

The first 250 GB in the protected amount of data does not consume license instances. Veeam Backup & Replication deducts this 250 GB from the protected amount of data to calculate what amount of data consumes license instances.

For example, if the protected amount of data for the NAS share is 540 GB, Veeam Backup & Replication deducts 250 GB from this amount:

540 GB - 250 GB = 290 GB

The free protected amount is calculated separately for each of the file shares added in the inventory.

For example, you have a single NAS device, but you add two of its shared folders to the inventory as separate file shares: File Share 1 (540 GB) and File Share 2 (750 GB). In this case, Veeam Backup & Replication deducts free 250 GB from the protected amount of data for each of these shared folders separately:

File share 1: 540 GB - 250 GB = 290 GB

File share 2: 750 GB - 250 GB = 500 GB

Veeam Backup & Replication rounds the protected amount of data for each NAS share up to 250 GB.

For example, if the protected amount of data for the NAS share is 290 GB, Veeam Backup & Replication rounds it up to 500 GB.

One license instance covers 250 GB of the protected amount of data.

For example, if the protected amount of data for the NAS share is 500 GB after rounding, Veeam Backup & Replication divides this amount by 250 GB to calculate the number of instances to consume:

500 GB / 250 GB = 2 license instances

Veeam Backup & Replication calculates the protected amount of data for each NAS during every NAS backup job run and keeps the result for 30 days. To calculate the number of license instances to consume for the NAS share protection, Veeam Backup & Replication takes the largest protected amount of data within the last 30 days.

If the size of the NAS share reduces and does not increase, after 30 days Veeam Backup & Replication recalculates the protected amount of data and automatically revokes the excessively consumed license instances. You can manually revoke the licenses without waiting for 30 days, as described in Revoking License. During the next NAS backup job run, Veeam Backup & Replication will recalculate the license instance consumption as of the current date.

For example, there is a NAS share with the protected amount of data 490 GB. Veeam Backup & Replication runs the file share backup job and after deducting the free 250 GB and rounding the amount it calculates that it will consume one license instance for protecting this NAS share:

490 GB - 250 GB = 240 GB ~ 250 GB = 1 license instance

Two days later, the size of the NAS share increases to 510 GB. Veeam Backup & Replication runs the file share backup job and recalculates the number of license instances to consume based on the increased size of the NAS share:

510 GB - 250 GB = 260 GB ~ 500 GB = 2 license instances

Two days later, the size of the NAS share decreases back to 490 GB and does not increase any more. Although the protected amount of data decreases, for the next 30 days Veeam Backup & Replication uses value 510 GB as a basis to calculate the consumption of license instances.

30 days later, Veeam Backup & Replication runs the file share backup job and recalculates the number of instances to consume taking into account that the largest protected amount of data within the last 30 days is 490 GB. After that, protection of the NAS share starts consuming 1 instance again.

To calculate the total number of license instances to consume for NAS backup support, Veeam Backup & Replication calculates the number of instances required for the protection of each separate NAS share and then sums these numbers.

Socket Licensing

With the socket licensing model, Veeam Backup & Replication is licensed by the number of CPU sockets on protected hosts. For more information, see Veeam Licensing Policy.

A license is required for every occupied motherboard socket as reported by the hypervisor API.

License is required only for source hosts — hosts on which VMs that you back up or replicate reside. Target hosts (for replication and migration jobs) do not need to be licensed.

Licensing Note:

If you use a socket license that was obtained for an earlier version of Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam Software adds up to 6 instances free of charge to your license scope. You can use these instances to protect any type of supported workloads except VMware and Hyper-V VMs — they are covered by the licensed CPU sockets on virtualization hosts.

If the number of licensed sockets is less than 6, you can use the number of instances that equals the number of licensed sockets. For example, if the number of licensed sockets is 5, you can use 5 instances. If the number of licensed sockets is 100, you can use 6 instances.

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