BE2015 Capacity Edition - BE CAREFUL over license model
Hi,
I don't ofter post, but i wanted to share my concerns over the limitations on the licensing model the Capacity Editions versions.
Having previously been on BE 2014 SBS, Upon renewing my support , the distributer decided to Cross Grade my license to the new 2015 Capacity Edition Lite License. ( As SBS is not available)
After a lot of phone calls, a Poor Licensing Document from Symantec ( Tech229205 ) , and finally a tech support case, I can now share the following.
Lets assume you have a 1TB License
Day | Backup Job | Uncompressed Data | Cumulative amount of data backed up |
0 - Install BE 2015 | 0TB | ||
1 | Full Backup | 750GB | 750GB |
2 | Partial Backup | 100GB | 850GB |
3 | Partial Backup | 100GB | 950GB |
4 | Partial Backup | 100GB | 1050GB - JOB FAILS |
5 | Partial Backup | 100GB | 1050GB - JOB FAILS |
6 | Partial Backup | 100GB | 1050GB - JOB FAILS |
So the 1TB Capacity limit applies to the Cumulative amount of data that bas been backed-up, and NOT as I thought to the JOB Size
---------- My Question to Technical support ----------------------
Please confirm the situation in the following example ( the table above) is correct
--------------- official response from technical support--------
Yes you are correct as per the above scenario which you have mention is correct
Note: Backup exec Capacity edition will work based on the uncompressed front-end data of the server , once it crosses 1TB data the backup wouldn't get through
The calculation is made on 30 days calculation on successful full backups
Full backup are considered on capacity calculation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I Hope this helps someone else. Capacity Edition is not for me !
If of course the official technical response is incorrect, then please advise
Regards
Chris
As further info I have just checked our internal training documents and the following points are made:
1) Alerts are generated when you exceed the capacity
2) Jobs are NOT prevented from running based on a negative capacity state. An alert is generated to notify the user
Not specifically covered in the training material, but as far as I am aware, front-End Capacity is not cumulative (although to explain this better)
You perform a full backup of specific server twice within the last 30 days and for some extremely rare reason no data changes at all take place on that server between the two backups. This will only count as 1x the byte count against the capacity license and not 2x the byte count. If some files did change between the two backups then this would (slightly) change the calculation based on the differences of the file changes.
However if you backup another server even if it contains some of the same files, the complete size of this second server will be added to the license calculation
Note: Because this point about the cumulative calculation is not covered very well in the material I have, I am currently setting up a test to prove this and will update this thread once the test is complete. I will also test the incremental backup scenario as to whether these are added in, as to be honest if you add data to a server this should be included in Front End calculation as that data is on that server (and is why you can add capacity licensing as your data usage grows (and why we do not stop backing up if you exceed the current license.)