Library expansion option licenses

[Corbett_Merrill]

I just recently upgraded from 11d to 12d and now the application is complaining about the library expansion option license:

Library Expansion Option Violation.

This server is licensed to support 2 tape drives in robotic libraries. However, the number of tape drives currently in use exceeds the license. You must purchase additional Library Expansion Options, or disable 1 tape drive. Please refer to product documentation for more information.

My server has two autoloaders: one loader has two drives and one loader only has one drive.  It is my undersanding that the LEO is needed for loaders that have more than one drive.  I had no problems using 11d and did not have any license warnings or error messages.  Why would 12d be complaining about this all of the sudden?  Has Symantec changed the way the LEO licenses work from 11d to 12d?

[Goldie]

Nothing has changed from a licensing standpoint in BE12 vs BE11d for the Library Expansion Option. The core media server will support only one tape drive -- no matter how many libraries are connected to it, anything above one requires a Library Expansion Option per each addtl drive. So if you have 3 drives you need 2 LEOs.

So you're saying you were able to run 3 tape drives w/ 11d...? How many library expansion option licenses did you have for two autoloaders when you were running 11d?

[RahulM]

Backup Exec comes with free support for any numbers of standalone tape drive and 1 library with a single drive.For any additional tape drive added to the library or a new library you will need additional LEOs depending on the number of tape drives in the Library Environment (excluding the one thats free).

Have you upgraded the agents and options too or just the base license for BEWS?

[Corbett_Merrill]

I just double checked a backup of my old besernum.xml file and confirmed that I had one LEO license.  I have sicne upgraded the LEO license for the 12d product.

Yes, I was able to run two loaders, one with one drive and one with two drives in 11d but not now in 12d.  When I purchased the LEO, it was explained to me that LEO was needed when Backup Exec uses libraries with more than one drive.

A few years ago when I had two loaders each with only one drive I did not need the LEO.  It was only after adding a second drive to one of the loaders that Backup Exec complained that it wasn't going to be able to use both drives.  That was when I first learned about LEO.

I guess the license has been this way all along but wasn't being accurately enforced by 11d.  I wasn't trying to break any rules.

Here is my new understanding of the LEO license, please confirm if correct:

If you have n drives that a Backup Exec server uses, regardless if they are in a loader or not, you need to have n-1 Library Expansion Option licenses to be able to concurrently run jobs using all drives.

[RahulM]

No.

If you have n number of drives and they are all standalone (not in a library),you will not need any LEO.

If you have n drives and all are in a library,you will need n-1 LEOs as 1 drive in a Library is supported for free.

[Hywel_Mallett]

---

Corbett Merrill wrote:

Here is my new understanding of the LEO license, please confirm if correct:

If you have n drives that a Backup Exec server uses, regardless if they are in a loader or not, you need to have n-1 Library Expansion Option licenses to be able to concurrently run jobs using all drives.

---

That's my understanding (from memory) if you have at least one loader present. If you have only standalone drives, you can have as many as you want without any LEO licenses.

Will have to double check that though...

[Corbett_Merrill]

Thank you for the explanations.  This is the best article I've found that clearly explains it.

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/278372.htm