Forum Discussion

mst1's avatar
mst1
Level 3
10 months ago

Question about capacity license model

Hello,

we were told that we have to switch our current traditional netbackup licenses to capactiy ones since otherwise we will not be able to extend our current support agreement.

 

I was running the nbdeployutil and it showed a few TBs for the last 90 days.

Is this number of TB * 4 (to get an estimation what we will use in about 1 year) we have to license when switching to capacity licensing? What about large backups we did in the past? For example lets say 180 days ago we did a one-time backup of 10 TB to tape. This is not shown in the report of nbdeployutil - does that mean it doesn't count for the capacity licensing?

Or do i misunderstand and the nbdeployutil is just to get an estimation what should be licensed for the future and if we exceed this value further backups will fail until we upgrade our license to a higher capacity?

 

  • StefanosM's avatar
    StefanosM
    10 months ago

    there is no problem with the restore. It does not count any data against licenses

  • Deeps's avatar
    Deeps
    Level 6
    10 months ago

    HI mst1  The new capacity license model uses the FETB or Front-End Terabyte to calculate the actual data  protected for a client (Front end).  It does not measure the capacity of the storage where the data resides or the total amount of data that is stored on the device. That means, it will only consider the data that is protected irrespective of the number of copies or times it is backed.


    For the FETB calculation,it takes a backup of the last 90 days with the assumption that we would have a Full backup of the client at least once in a quarter. Or to put it simple , it will pick the largest FULL backup in the last 90 days.
    To get to the FETB value, it adds the Largest Full backup of each Policy / Client combination from the last 90 days.

    Consider the following:

    1. Assume a device with 100 TB of total storage capacity.
    2. A total of 65 TB of the total capacity is in use.
    3. NetBackup protects a total of 60 TB of the used data through multiple backup storage units.
    4. That is measured as 60 TB of front-end capacity.

    The total terabytes of front-end capacity are independent of the number of copies NetBackup makes. A backup of 200 TB to basic disk with two copies to tape is still only 200TB of front-end capacity.

    DeepS

    • mst1's avatar
      mst1
      Level 3
      10 months ago

      Hello DeepS,

      thank you very much.

      So if i did a huge full backup of a client 100 days before, and only differential from there on, would this mean for the FETB cacluation this huge full backup does not count?

      Lets say a huge full backup of 50 TB was made 100 days ago (for archiving reasons). In the last 90 days only differential backups were made for this client with much less data in total (say 5 TB), would a 5 FETB capacity license be sufficient?

  • StefanosM's avatar
    StefanosM
    Level 6
    10 months ago

    well
    netbackup license count the biggest full backup of a client in the last 90 days. Your question is hypothetical and not practical.
    I do not want to be with you when you need a full restoration of this client after 100 or 200 days.

    To be compliant, and according to the netbackup licensing guide, you are obligated to have a 50 TB license from the day you backup this system and up to 90 days.
    What will happen after 90 days? Only the Veritas Legal Department can say (and maybe your presalles) .

    Also keep in mind that if a license check is performed during these 90 days, you will be forced to pay the missing licenses with the list price and not with any discount you may have.

    • mst1's avatar
      mst1
      Level 3
      10 months ago

      Hello StefanosM,

      thank you very much.

      Well, the reason why i was asking about this scenario is, that we already did this a huge backup (for data we have to archive). At this point we did not know that we will have to switch to capacity licensing soon, we are currently still on the traditional model. But it was more than 90 days ago, so when i currently run the nbdeployutil.exe those 50 TB don't show up.

      For this specifict client backup we may have to look for other solutions in the future, as we were told a capacity license for such an amount of data will be extremly expensive, however we don't have a current offer yet.

      But i also wonder what would happen if we buy a license for lets say only 10 FETB now for our future backups but then may need to restore the 50 TB later. Guess indeed we have to ask Veritas or an official seller.

      Kind regards

  • StefanosM's avatar
    StefanosM
    Level 6
    10 months ago

    there is no problem with the restore. It does not count any data against licenses