A Quick Recap Of Old Announcements
January 1, 2021 – Effective on this date, Veeam discontinued the sale of net-new Standard and Enterprise editions for Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Availability Suite socket licensing as well as Basic Support. Expansions for existing customers were not impacted. Enterprise Plus edition with Production (24/7) Support became the only option available (read more about this here).
July 1, 2022 – On this date, all Veeam socket licenses were supposed to reach end of sale (EOS), also including expansions. Net-new socket licensing and expanding on Veeam Backup Essentials environments is no longer available. Additionally, going forward, the maximum renewal length is three years.
October 2022 – As the 7/1/2022 deadline approached, Veeam adjusted the EOS dates and only Veeam Essentials socket licensing went EOS. The end of sale of perpetual socket-based Backup & Replication and Availability Suite licensing for existing customers was pushed to 1/1/2023 (net-new sales are no longer available). Veeam Backup Essentials still reached end of sale on 7/1/2022. In addition to the end of sale date moving, a price increase that impacted both additional licenses and support renewals of perpetual, socket-based licenses were enacted (read more about this here).
This Year’s Changes
First, Veeam re-branded their products, so I want to do a quick hit on all of those because the names will be used interchangeably. All of these new naming conventions apply to both the legacy socket licensing. The new names are on all the branding, but everyone still knows what you mean if you talk about Backup & Replication or Availability Suite.
- Veeam Backup & Replication (VB&R) is now Veeam Data Platform Foundation.
- Veeam Availability Suite (VAS) is now Veeam Data Platform Advanced.
- There is a new package – Veeam Data Platform Premium – it includes the features of VAS & Veeam Recovery Orchestrator.
- Veeam Essentials is now Veeam Data Platform Essentials.
As we all know, Veeam previously announced socket licensing was going away – for good – and that the only way to add new Veeam licenses was going to be through Universal licensing. Well… not anymore.
Veeam has altered their Per-Socket Licensing abilities AGAIN – and we had a feeling they would do so (I hate to say “I told you so,” but….this isn’t coming as a huge surprise). If you were holding out, now is a terrific time to place your order for more.
Here is what we know:
Veeam has announced the immediate reinstatement of per-CPU perpetual socket licensing for the Enterprise and Enterprise Plus editions of Veeam Data Platform Foundation and Advanced (formerly known as Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Availability Suite).
However, only existing customers of these products are permitted to expand the number of perpetual sockets in their existing perpetual sockets environment. Net new clients do not have the ability to purchase perpetual sockets.
While this announcement may come as a surprise, the fact that there are exceptions to this reinstatement should not.
The only way to purchase additional socket licenses is if you (the customer) already have existing socket licensing at the Enterprise or Enterprise Plus level. If this is you, congrats! You’re good to add on additional socket licensing at that level and expend your environment.
If you don’t have socket licensing at the Enterprise or Enterprise Plus level, but do at another level – for example, like at the Standard level – you can upgrade to Enterprise or Enterprise Plus and then add on from there.
However, if you don’t have any socket licensing, you cannot add net new socket licensing – you would still have to purchase Veeam through the Universal licensing model.
Besides Enterprise and Enterprise Plus, this is also for both VDP – Foundation Enterprise Edition and VDP – Foundation Enterprise Plus Edition (formerly known as Veeam Backup & Replication Enterprise & Enterprise Plus Editions) socket licensing, as well as VDP – Advanced Enterprise Edition and VDP – Advanced Enterprise Plus Edition (formerly known as Veeam Availability Suite Enterprise & Enterprise Plus Editions).
It’s important to note that customers who have migrated away from socket licensing will not be able to un-migrate. According to Veeam, migrations were never required (even though they were pushed strongly), and there isn’t a migration from VUL to sockets. If you are in this situation and need to expand your Veeam capacity, you will need to continue to buy additional Veeam Data Platform licenses (formerly VB&R VUL & VAS VUL).
With all these changes, we’ve included some frequently asked questions that may help provide more information for you:
Socket Licensing FAQs
1) Which Perpetual Socket Licenses will be available for purchase?
Perpetual Socket Licenses for the Enterprise and Enterprise Plus Editions of Veeam Data Platform Foundation (formerly Veeam Backup & Replication) and Veeam Data Platform – Advanced (previously Veeam Availability Suite) as long as the client currently owns socket licensing at that level. These can be purchased with either Basic or Production support (yes, it seems that Basic support is also making a comeback!).
2) Who qualifies for further perpetual socket purchases?
Customers of Veeam Data Platform Foundation (formerly Veeam Backup & Replication) and Veeam Data Platform Advanced (previously Veeam Availability Suite) qualify. If you migrated from perpetual licensing to subscription licensing, you unfortunately cannot go back.
3) Are additional Veeam ONE, Veeam Data Platform Essentials sockets (of any edition), or Standard Edition customers able to be purchased?
Unfortunately, they are not. These customers would need to buy perpetual sockets for VDP Foundation (VBR) or VDP Advanced (VAS) in the Enterprise or Enterprise Plus edition after upgrading their current licenses to eligible versions so that the products can combine and produce a single license file for central management Veeam’s socket merge rules will still apply.
Customers who have purchased the Management Pack alone are ineligible for this purchase.
4) What merging possibilities are there for perpetual sockets?
Only perpetual licenses for the same product (Essentials, Foundation, Advanced) and edition (Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus) can be merged. Subscription Sockets and Perpetual Sockets cannot be merged. When a socket license and a VUL license are installed simultaneously into a single product, the product will use socket licenses for all VMware and Hyper-V VMs and VUL instances for all other workloads.
5) Will there be a socket available for VDP-P?
No. This isn’t an option (“Why?” you might ask? We’re not sure either).
6) Will customers who have migrated be able to return to socket licensing?
Unfortunately, customers who migrated their socket licensing to VUL will not be able to revert back to socket licensing.
7) Can customers purchase and apply various editions of socket licenses in the same environment?
No. Customers are not permitted to use different editions or different products on the same shared source infrastructure.
8) Can clients use Perpetual Sockets and VUL licenses in the same centralized management environment?
Yes. For VDP – Foundation (VBR) and VDP – Advanced (VAS), combining sockets and VUL is possible.
If you’d like to learn more about this or have any additional questions, please contact us and call (502) 240-0404 or email info@mirazon.com.