Veeam Availability Suite, Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam ONE and Veeam Backup Essentials can each be licensed in two ways:

1. Through use of a portable VUL Universal license, which includes 24x7 Production Support
2. Using a Per-socket license with Basic or Production maintenance

Certain features may be offered only with Universal licensing due to the nature of the environment or workload.

VUL “Universal” licenses are portable Subscription licenses sold in bundles, and these license instances can be used across many products or workloads interchangeably. There are one- to five-year Instance licensing terms available, and customers can choose to purchase license bundles upfront or pay annually. Learn more about the portable VUL licenses.

Per-Socket licenses are licensed per CPU socket on hosts with virtual machines (VMs) (VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V only) to be backed up, replicated, monitored or reported on. A license is required for each occupied motherboard socket as reported by the hypervisor API.

To purchase, please contact your preferred reseller, find a Veeam reseller in your area or place an inquiry with Veeam sales.

Both of these products are licensed with the VUL universal license, with any VUL SKU. There is no longer a license SKU just for Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Veeam Agent for Linux.

Effective at contract renewal or at the upgrade to v3, Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Veeam Agent for Linux will use Veeam Universal License (VUL). Learn more about VUL here.

Existing subscription customers prior to Feb. 1, 2019 will be required to update their license file within 90 days of an in-place upgrade of Veeam Availability Suite / Veeam Backup & Replication / Veeam ONE 9.5 Update 4. The new VUL (Veeam Universal License) model goes into effect at the install of Update 4 or the renewal of the subscription term.

Yes, you can stay with your current license version if you don’t want to upgrade and take advantage of the enhancements available only with Update 4. Customers needing some features like Agents for Windows or Linux, backup up enterprise apps like SAP HANA or Oracle RMAN or protecting cloud workloads are required to use VUL licenses. Please note that after renewal, you will get a VUL file compatible only with Update 4. If you still don’t want to install Update 4, you can request a legacy license file by opening a licensing ticket at my.veeam.com. 

Your legacy license file will be working as-is for your current support term. However, this licensing option is no longer available, and you need to consider the following renewal options:

1. Renew your support term for Veeam Availability Suite / Veeam Backup & Replication / Veeam ONE with the new model and benefit from centralized management across all protected workloads.
2. If you require central management across multiple Veeam products, updating your license file now is advised. All products need to be current on Veeam maintenance. 

More information on merging products is available here, and you can calculate how many instances you need here. Please contact the Veeam Renewals Team if you want to discuss your options early.

The gifted instances provided to existing Per-Socket customers (one instance per each CPU socket up to a maximum of six instances) to try protecting Veeam Agents for Microsoft Windows and Linux, Enterprise Application Plug-ins for SAP HANA and Oracle RMAN and more. There are no obligations, and these included instances for free. However, these trial license will expire when you purchase additional VUL licenses in this same environment.

Yes. For your current support term, you can generate a merged license file at my.veeam.com. Instructions on merging license files can be found here.

Customers can have an environment mixed with both perpetual and subscription licenses that is centrally managed. The products must be the same across all licenses (for Perpetual licensing the editions must also match). If you protect VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V VMs with perpetual per-socket licenses you must protect all vSphere/Hyper-V VMs with sockets in that environment, VUL licenses can be used for any other non-VM workload type.

Important Note: when merging Per-Socket and VUL licenses, be aware that the socket license dictates the edition and capability of the merged environment. For example: If you merge VAS ENT sockets with VAS VUL (ENT+), the environment is still ENT feature set. IN order to get ENT+ capabilities, users need to either a) Migrate Per-Socket licenses to VUL licenses or b) upgrade Per-Socket licenses to the preferred edition (likely ENT+).

If a customer wants to have a centrally managed environment, they may need to merge license files. The requirement is that maintenance be current for BOTH the per-socket AND the VUL components. Reference this KB article for more details on merging licenses. Contact Veeam Support for assistance with any issues.

If the product installation manages an environment of more than 50 instances, at the renewal of your subscription term, you can choose from the following options based on your business needs:

• If centralized management is required, we advise you to renew your subscription term with a FREE upgrade to Veeam Availability Suite. This is a one-time offer to renew for one to five years at the price of Veeam Backup Essentials. After that, the subsequent renewal will be quoted for the then-current full price of Veeam Availability Suite.
• If no centralized management is required, you can split and renew your subscription into several licenses for Veeam Backup Essentials — up to 50 instances each.

For your current subscription term, you can generate a new license file at no additional cost for the workloads you have. Attention! The centralized management option for more than 50 instances will only be available until your next renewal.

As a heavily discounted SMB offering, all new and renewed Veeam Backup Essentials (VBE) licenses will have some merge restrictions, but VBE socket licenses can be merged with VAS VUL licenses. If customer hits their maximum license limit, they are encouraged up upgrade to VAS or VBR.

Please contact the Veeam Renewals Team if you want to discuss your options early.

No, product components are not licensed separately. You can deploy as many of these components as you like while licensed to the correct number of sockets or VMs.

Customers with Per-socket licenses of Veeam Backup & Replication (or other product) who are current on maintenance and customers with Subscription licenses can upgrade to Veeam Availability Suite at a price that takes their original investment into consideration. Contact your Veeam sales representative to request the upgrade.

For Per-socket license holders, as part of the upgrade, you will receive one year of Basic support. Maintenance for your Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam ONE licenses should be co-termed to facilitate a single-support expiration date for all components of your Veeam Availability Suite. For those interested in upgrading a Subscription / VUL license, support is already included.

To take advantage of all the integrated features in 9.5, you must be running 9.5 for both products.

Customers with Perpetual licenses of Veeam ONE who are current on maintenance can upgrade to Veeam Availability Suite at a price that takes their original investment in Veeam ONE into consideration. Customers with Instance licenses can use their existing instances for other products, including Veeam Availability Suite, and can purchase additional instances as needed.

Contact a Veeam sales or renewals representative to discuss appropriate upgrade options.

If you upgrade from Veeam Backup Essentials to Veeam Backup & Replication, your Veeam ONE license is invalidated, and you are no longer eligible for support or maintenance for Veeam ONE. You are required to sign and submit a Letter of Destruction for Veeam ONE, and you should discontinue use of it.

Yes, however, to get a merged key (which would include Veeam Backup Essentials licenses), customers should either upgrade all licenses to Veeam Availability Suite or Veeam Backup & Replication. See the licensing policy.

To upgrade to another edition, visit the Veeam Licensing Portal.

You will need a new license file to install 9.5 Update 4 even if you do not plan to upgrade your edition. Visit the Veeam Licensing Portal to download an updated 9.5 license file.

To renew your support, please complete a request for a renewal quote.

Starting with v7 patch 4, Veeam Backup & Replication supports automatic license updates. With this feature enabled, Veeam backup server (or Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager server if deployed) proactively communicates with the Veeam Licensing Portal to receive a new license before the current license expires. For more information about enabling this feature, review the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide for vSphere and User Guide for Hyper-V.