Veeam introduces new Universal licence

Veeam has kicked off a new licensing scheeam^*.

The new Veeam Universal License (VUL) is essentially a subscription scheme that sells one software licence for each protected workload. That workload could be a VM, a physical server, an application, a cloud VM or a file share, with a VUL able to be applied to any of those platforms.

They’re sold in bundles of ten. If buyers or partners want fewer licences, Veeam’s offering is the free Community Edition that protects up to ten workloads for $0.00.

There’s also a new step up from the Community Edition. The new “Backup Starter”, which can handle 20 workloads, tosses in Veeam basic support and starts at US$400 per year for 10 licenses with Standard edition capability.

Veeam has billed VUL as having “simplified and upgraded” the previous Veeam Instance Licensing (VIL) scheme by offering “one fully featured, universal edition that makes buying and using portable licenses even easier.” And does that while offering discounts of up to 33 percent on Veeam Enterprise Plus edition.

VUL is sold on one-to-five year terms, with annual or up-front payments. Veeam’s claiming that’s the kind of elastic licencing customers want because they can vary licences at annual renewal time.

h one- to five-year options, you can choose the term and payment schedule that meets your needs. Pay upfront or pay annually. When the license expires, you must renew the license to continue usage of the subscription. All licenses include 24.7.365 Production Support, except Starter, which includes basic support.

Veeam’s explanation of VUL reveals pricing:

• US$1500/year for 10 Veeam Availability Suite VULs
• US$1200/year for 10 Veeam Backup & Replication VULs
• US$800/year for 10 Veeam Backup Essentials VULs

There are some exceptions to the new scheme. Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 and Veeam Availability Orchestrator “aren’t yet a part of VUL” and keep their old licences. Veeam is also keeping per-socket licencing as an option for VMware and Hyper-V VMs on premises.

But you’ll have to ask for that, because Veeam says “Effective immediately, all purchases of Veeam subscription licensing for products in the Veeam Availability Suite portfolio will be licensed with VUL.”

^*See what we did there?