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I have an infrastructure operating on a Nutanix Cluster and Prism Element, and I have integrated it with VEEAM Backup. I possess a socket-based license for VEEAM, and the cluster appears online in VEEAM. There are about 15 VMs in my infra, and I have set up a job to back up all the VMs which are within the cluster, I start the job and observed that it is not utilizing the socket license. Instead, it's recognizing an instance-based approach and only backing up a few VMs, with the rest displaying a license overutilization error. Can any one let me know How Nutanix works with VEEAM, is it a socket based license or instance based license only.

I hope there are Veeam specialists reading here. But better is to ask the question in the Veeam community forums. 

Thank you so much for feedback !!!

 

Same question was posted on VEEAM community as well and I got the answer that it support instance based licensing, rather than socket based.

 

Cheers !!!

Hi there,

to answer your question in a bit more detail “Is Veeam with Nutanix socket-based or instance-based?”

Short Answer:
Veeam’s licensing model for Nutanix AHV integration is instance-based, not socket-based.

 

Key Points:

  1. Veeam’s Nutanix-specific integration (AHV backup proxy) requires an Enterprise Plus or higher license and is licensed per instance, not per socket, even if your broader Veeam infrastructure uses socket-based licensing for VMware or Hyper-V environments.
  2. This is clearly outlined in Veeam documentation (KB articles and licensing guides) and confirmed by the Nutanix integration whitepapers.
  3. When a Nutanix cluster is added to Veeam as an AHV environment, Veeam treats each protected VM as an instance, consuming from your instance pool (rather than being covered by socket licensing).

 

What you're experiencing:

You likely added the Nutanix cluster using the AHV Backup Proxy integration, triggering instance-based metering, which is not covered under your socket-based Veeam license. This results in license overutilization if your instance count is exceeded.

 

Resolution Paths:

  • Option 1: Purchase additional instance licenses from Veeam to cover the AHV workload.
  • Option 2: If most of your environment is VMware/Hyper-V and you're only testing Nutanix, consider using in-guest agents instead of the AHV Proxy (though you lose crash/app-consistency and efficient CBT-based backups).
  • Option 3: Contact Veeam licensing support to explore potential migration paths to a unified VUL (Veeam Universal License) model, which is more flexible across hypervisors.

 

Citation:

This behaviour aligns with Veeam’s documented support model for Nutanix integration:

“When backing up Nutanix AHV workloads, Veeam requires a VUL license, which is instance-based.”
(Source: Veeam Help Centre, https://www.veeam.com/legal/licensing-policy.html )

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