FAQ

Subscription FAQ

Overview

Veritas is offering a new flexible subscription program for all products across data protection, data compliance, and the application resiliency portfolio. The program allows customers to purchase entitlements to Veritas products and use them flexibly across public, private, or on-prem environments.  

Veritas subscriptions provide greater alignment with customers' current and future IT and cloud plans, giving them more for their investment – more innovation, control, and value.  As they accelerate their journey to the cloud, customers will have the ability to scale capacity when needed on a go-forward basis and maximize the impact of their cloud investments.  

Our products are GA across Azure and AWS marketplaces (with limited geo and product restrictions), so that customers can leverage cloud provider commitment spend to purchase subscriptions and maximize the value of their cloud investments.

Veritas defines “subscription” or “term” licensing as a single offering that gives customers a license to use the product, and get maintenance and support for the product, for the duration of the term. At the end of the term, the purchaser must renew the term subscription to continue use of the product.

A SaaS, or hosted subscription, provides the customer the right to access a vendor’s product hosted in the cloud for a specific term duration (e.g., 12 months). Unlike a term-based subscription or a perpetual license, a SaaS agreement does not grant a license to the purchaser.

All Veritas software products will now be offered as a term subscription or SaaS. The subscription default term duration is 3-years, though Veritas offers flexible options for customers wanting other durations.  SaaS subscriptions also have the option of auto-renew at the end of the initial term. In addition, Veritas’s newest innovations will only be available in our term subscription or SaaS models.

Improved ROI

  • Reduced administrative costs
  • Simplify software acquisition
  • Accelerate time to value
  • More value delivered via simple product bundles
  • Fewer contracts and easier transactions

Drive Your Success 

  • Take advantage of competitive unit pricing as you scale your business
  • Convert at the cost of existing maintenance and support
  • Lower acquisition cost and TCO advantage vs perpetual 
  • Predictable annual spend

Accelerate Your Cloud Journey

  • Support your digital transformation
  • Future proof your cloud
  • Maximize your cloud investments
  • Access to cloud-native capabilities and innovation

Subscription customers will have access to new product features only available under subscription.  (Please refer to the License Agreement and Product Use Rights document for each software offering for details.)

No. While the terms “cloud” and “subscription” are often used synonymously, the transition to subscription licensing is separate from the deployment model (cloud versus on-premise).

Product

Overall Product Portfolio – Subscription Offerings

Yes. All Veritas on-premise and Cloud software products are offered only in a subscription or SaaS model for new software purchases.

You can continue to use the current product versions following conversion to subscription licenses.  As with perpetual licenses, customers will have access to prior versions of Veritas products per the End of Service Life list. To take advantage of our fullest set of functionality, features, enhancements, and innovations, simply upgrade to the latest subscription versions of Veritas software products.

As with perpetual licenses, you will have access to prior versions of Veritas products per the End of Service Life list.

Yes. The flexible software subscription licensing program allows purchase of additional units of subscription software at any time. Additional purchases co-term with the original subscription end date and 3-year subscription licenses benefit from locked in pricing.

Yes. Subscription benefits are applicable to both new subscription license purchases and subscription licenses converted from existing installed base perpetual licenses.

Veritas has removed new perpetual license from its pricelist.  All new purchases must be term subscription or SaaS. (Certain limited exceptions will be considered in Veritas’ sole discretion.)

Your use and deployment of Veritas software will, in general, not be impacted by a move to subscription, as it is simply a change in licensing model. Please refer to the product sections below for questions related to any specific Veritas product.

No, not as a result of changing your licensing model from perpetual to subscription. On-premise term subscription, as well as associated data, will continue to be located in your current environment. Only Veritas SaaS and single tenant hosted offerings are hosted in the cloud.

Yes.  Continuing our tradition of product innovation, Veritas is announcing a number of new product offerings, all of which will only be available as a term subscription or SaaS.

For term subscription, you choose if and when you want to upgrade your software version. However, we encourage all customers to upgrade to the latest version of their Veritas products to take advantage of the newest features and capabilities. SaaS solutions are updated automatically as soon as new releases are available.

Veritas offers 3-year subscriptions by default, but is also offering 1-, 2-, 4- and 5-year subscriptions.  The 3-year subscription will provide customers with the best annualized pricing.

Detailed instructions on how to set up your new subscription license and guidance on when it may be necessary to uninstall your previous will be provided to you by your Veritas representative, reseller, or Veritas Customer Care.

You can convert your install base perpetual software on maintenance and support to subscription when you are buying additional licenses or when your renewal is due.

For additional information including how to set up and manage your subscription licenses, please contact your Veritas representative, reseller, or Veritas Customer Care.

Yes. Customers who have perpetual licenses and a current maintenance and support contract will continue to receive bug fixes, security updates and upgrades for their perpetual software. Several new features as part of the NetBackup Software upgrade are only available for customers on a NetBackup capacity license. (For further information, please refer to the Traditional to Capacity Subscription program.) In addition, please be aware that there will be new features and product capabilities that are only available as part of Veritas subscription or SaaS offerings.

Veritas is continually improving the support experience for all customers by providing faster, easier, and simpler ways to get assistance when they need it most.

 

NetBackup

We have simplified the NetBackup product portfolio from several perpetual offerings to two subscription offerings:

Perpetual Offers Subscription Offers
  • NetBackup Complete Edition
  • NetBackup Complete Edition with Flexible Licensing
  • NetBackup Traditional
  • NetBackup 360 Data Management Suite
  • NetBackup Limited Edition
  • NetBackup Enterprise Virtual Client
  • NetBackup Enterprise

       + IT Analytics Foundation

  • NetBackup for NDMP
  • NetBackup Data Mover

      + IT Analytics Foundation

 

 

NetBackup Data Mover is a NetBackup offering designed for customers who have high volumes of data and whose needs can be met with NDMP, DNAS, and Universal Share.

NetBackup Enterprise includes all the features and functionality of NetBackup Complete Edition with Flexible Licensing.  It also comes with bundled NetBackup IT Analytics Foundation that provides a base set of reporting capabilities and is designed to functionally replace OpsCenter. It features the ability to run insights on data managed within your NetBackup Enterprise domain.  NetBackup Enterprise is a capacity offering metered on front-end terabytes (FETB Plus). Please see the NetBackup Product Use Rights for more details.

Your NetBackup Complete Edition license will remain in place until the expiration of your current term.  Thereafter, you may license the new NetBackup Enterprise subscription offering.

Customers can convert the following NetBackup editions to NetBackup Enterprise subscription:

  • NetBackup Complete Edition
  • NetBackup Complete Edition with Flexible Licensing
  • NetBackup Traditional 
  • NetBackup 360 Data Management Suite
  • NetBackup Limited Edition
  • NetBackup Enterprise Virtual Client
  • NetBackup NDMP Edition

Yes.  You can convert to NetBackup Enterprise, which contains additional features and functionality unavailable in NetBackup Data Mover.

Yes. Customers with NetBackup capacity licenses can renew their existing maintenance and support, which includes access to new versions of NetBackup. However, some new product capabilities will only be available on a subscription license.

If you need to add licenses you must purchase either NetBackup Enterprise or NetBackup Data Mover subscription licenses. The subscription licenses can be used in the same domain as your existing perpetual capacity licenses. NetBackup Enterprise is functionally equivalent to NetBackup Complete Edition with Flexible Licensing.

No. If you need to add additional licenses you must purchase either NetBackup Enterprise or NetBackup Data Mover term subscription licenses. These licenses can be used in the same domain as your existing perpetual capacity licenses. NetBackup Enterprise is effectively the same as NetBackup Complete Edition with Flexible Licensing, including the same 1.5 multiplier for virtualized workloads. NetBackup Data Mover is a new offering targeted at those workloads whose needs can be met with NDMP, DNAS, and Universal Share.

No. Veritas is no longer offering new NetBackup Traditional licenses. Additionally, Veritas is removing NetBackup Traditional licenses and maintenance and support from its price lists effective April 2025. (For further information, please refer to the Traditional to Capacity Subscription program.) NetBackup Traditional customers wanting to expand will be required to convert their licenses to either NetBackup Enterprise or NetBackup Data Mover, both of which are term subscription capacity offerings. Veritas has a program in place to help customers migrate from NetBackup Traditional licensing to capacity licensing.

Yes. If customers have active maintenance and support contracts for their NetBackup Traditional licenses, they can get access to new NetBackup version upgrades made available for their NetBackup Traditional licenses.  Note that subscription-only features and functionality will not be included in NetBackup Traditional version upgrades.

Please refer to the NetBackup License Agreement and Product Use Rights document for details.

NetBackup IT Analytics is available in three offerings:

  • IT Analytics Protection
  • IT Analytics Storage Management
  • IT Analytics Complete

IT Analytics Foundation is included with NetBackup Enterprise as well as NetBackup Data Mover and is not sold separately.

 

NetBackup IT Analytics is available in three offerings: IT Analytics Protection, IT Analytics Storage Management, and IT Analytics Complete. IT Analytics Foundation is included in NetBackup Enterprise as well as NetBackup Data Mover and is not separately available. There is no separate charge or cost to receive IT Analytics Foundation as part of a NetBackup Enterprise or NetBackup Data Mover subscription.

No.  You cannot commingle NetBackup Traditional licenses and NetBackup Capacity licenses in the same NetBackup domain.  However, customers on the same meter can commingle. For example, in one NetBackup domain you can have both perpetual and subscription if they are all capacity licenses.

 

InfoScale

We have simplified the InfoScale product portfolio from several perpetual offerings to four subscription offerings:

Perpetual Offers Subscription Offers
  • InfoScale Foundation Server Tier (A-N)
  • InfoScale Foundation Core
  • InfoScale Foundation Core Plus
  • InfoScale Foundation Core Plus
  • InfoScale Storage Server Tier (A-N)
  • InfoScale Storage Core
  • InfoScale Storage Core Plus
  • InfoScale Storage Core Plus
  • InfoScale Availability Server Tier (A-N)
  • InfoScale Availability Core
  • InfoScale Availability Core Plus
  • InfoScale Availability Core Plus
  • InfoScale Enterprise Server Tier (A-N)
  • InfoScale Enterprise Core
  • InfoScale Enterprise Core Plus
  • InfoScale Enterprise Core Plus

 

InfoScale Core Plus subscription offering provides additional management capabilities to simplify license reporting and to better manage your current InfoScale license assets and factors the steady advances of CPU technology. 

Server Tier perpetual licenses may be converted to Core Plus subscription licenses based on an equitable value of the Server Tier licenses.

Core perpetual or Core subscription licenses may be converted to Core Plus subscription licenses.

Core Plus perpetual licenses may be converted to Core Plus subscription licenses. For those customers already running Core Plus subscription, no further conversion is necessary.

Current InfoScale subscription licenses will not be impacted by Veritas’ subscription transition.  You will continue to receive the same benefits and support access for existing subscription licenses.

Please refer to the InfoScale License Agreement and Product Use Rights document for details.

 

Data Compliance & Governance

We have simplified the Data Compliance & Governance product portfolio by reducing the number of Enterprise Vault, eDiscovery Platform and Data Insight offerings as as we transition from perpetual to subscription:

Perpetual Offers Subscription Offers
  • EV Archive Discovery
  • EV Compliance Accelerator
  • EV Supervision
  • EV ECM/Record Management Connector
  • EV Extensions
  • EV Encase Ingest Connector
  • EV Email Management
  • EV File Classification & Retention
  • EV File Governance Suite
  • EV File Management
  • EV Legacy Email Ingest
  • EV Mail Classification & Retention
  • EV Suite Perpetual
  • EV.cloud
    Archiving in a SaaS Deployment
  • EV Suite
    All EV Components
  • EV Supervision
    Complete solution for Financial Services Customer
  • EV Archive Discovery 
    Complete solution for Discovery Use Case
  • Merge1 Perpetual Suite Connector
  • Premium Connectors and Standard Connectors
  • Merge1
  • Merge1 Suite (All Connectors)
  • Merge1 SaaS

Complete solution for Content capture

  • Data Insight On-prem
  • Data Insight Plus Cloud Storage
  • Data Insight Self-Service Portal Addon
  • Data Insight

Complete Solution for Data Visibility and Analytics including cloud and self-service portal

  • eDiscovery Platform
  • eDiscovery Platform
  • Veritas Advanced Discovery (SaaS)

 

Veritas on-premises customers are starting to consider SaaS alternatives. Although we continue to strongly invest in our on-premises solutions, we want to offer seamless migration at low or no cost to those customers that do wish to move to Alta Archiving.   We have introduced processes to make this transition easy within the Veritas portfolio by allowing cross-grades from Enterprise Vault on-premises to Alta Archiving and subsidized migrations.

Existing EV customers will take 1 of 2 paths:

  1. If you wish to move to a fully managed SaaS solution, we will provide subsidized migrations to allow you to move to an Alta Archiving subscription.
  2. If you wish to stay on-premise for the time being, you can migrate from an a la carte solution to the EV Suite subscription which provides all aspects of Enterprise Vault (Discovery, Surveillance, Classification, Journaling, File Archiving and Email Archiving).   We also offer Archive Discovery, Supervision Suite, File Governance and Email management a la carte.

Please refer to the License Agreement and Product Use Rights document for each software offering for details.

 

Backup Exec

Backup Exec is currently available under subscription for certain editions; however, we have simplified the product portfolio, further enhanced the subscription offering and introduced backup for M365 as a subscription-only feature.

Microsoft 365 Backup is only available under the subscription offering.

Yes you can renew your Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Custom editions and V-Ray licenses at this time.

 

NetBackup SaaS Protection

Alta SaaS Protection (ASP) has always been available solely as a hosted subscription offering; however, we will be simplifying the product portfolio and further enhancing the subscription offering.

We are simplifying the ASP product portfolio from 3 subscription offerings to 2 and introducing a suite of valued added, add-on services to give our customers added flexibility to configure an ASP tenant that meets their technical, performance and budget needs.

Enterprise Enterprise Plus Add-On Services

Key features to manage your SaaS backup:

  • Data source connectors
  • Unlimited retention
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Legal Hold
  • Early Case Assessment
  • Metadata search
  • Azure AD integration
  • SSO, MFA
  • Intelligent tiering
  • Role based access control
  • Local redundancy of data (3 copies)

All the features of Enterprise with the following additional features:

  • End-user self-service portal
  • Full text search
  • Multi-region scale-out capable

Extra features that can be added to your tenant:

  • Additional Data Storage Limit
  • Extra Data backup
  • Software Development Kit

 

ASP is deployed as single tenant architecture, which means our customers get a dedicated environment for their backup needs. A single tenant model ensures that our customers have the ultimate flexibility in performance, security and user experience. What’s more, with a single tenant deployment model, our customers can configure their ASP tenant to meet their exact feature, performance and budget requirements.

As a cloud-native, single tenant architecture, ASP can be deployed in any Azure region globally as long as it meets the technical requirements. The benefit of this single tenant architecture allows us to host ASP in our Azure subscription, or optionally, a customer can bring their own Azure subscription to host ASP. In both cases, this is still delivered as a fully managed, SaaS service. Regardless of deployment model, Veritas is responsible for the provisioning, configuration, updates, upgrades and monitoring of a Customer’s ASP tenant, within a simple subscription fee model. For customers bringing their own Azure subscription, they get the added benefit of being able to use ASP to draw down on any Azure consumption commitments while receiving a fully managed, SaaS backup experience.

NSP is licensed in two ways depending on the workload being protected. For collaboration workloads such as M365 Suite or Google Workspace, NSP is licensed on a per user basis. For file workloads, NSP is licensed on a per front-end TB basis.

ASP licenses are metered in two ways depending on the workload being protected. For collaboration workloads such as M365 Suite or Google Workspace, ASP licenses are metered on a per user basis. For file workloads, ASP licenses are metered on a per front-end TB basis.

ASP is based on a shared storage limit model, implemented at the tenant level. That means, as a customer purchases backup for several workloads, we will aggregate all the storage together for that tenant. This ensures that customers need only concern themselves with the total storage required to meet their backup needs. When the need arises, customers can procure additional allocated capacity for their tenant and/or purge data from their backup to free up space.

Pricing

General Questions

The NetBackup subscription list price is now better positioned with other comparable solutions. We also enhanced the subscription offering and introduced subscription benefits for licenses with a subscription term of at least three years.

Subscription pricing offers several economic advantages, such as: 

  • lowering total contract value (TCV)
  • lowering upfront acquisition cost
  • predictable and consistent expenses
  • payments aligned with actual usage
  • minimizing ongoing administration
  • eliminating unused licenses

Discounts for perpetual licenses cannot be directly compared to term-limited licenses. We follow industry practice with – in general – lower discounts for subscriptions.

Your unit-rate for subscription licenses with a 3-year or longer term is available for additional subscription license purchases over the duration of your active term. However, we may adjust list price from time to time to reflect changes in the marketplace.

No. You can choose to pay all up-front, or annually in advance. Paying for a multi-year subscription up-front is priced the same as paying annually in advance.

Yes.  Customers who agree to a 3-year subscription or longer and commit to usage reporting are entitled to add additional units to their active subscription at the same unit price originally negotiated.

Your licensed quantity of subscription software cannot be reduced during the term.

 

True forward

True forward is an alternative to a “true up” billing model that allows customers to add units to their subscription at periodic reviews going forward to reflect actual usage for the remainder of the term.  Whereas in a “true up” model, customers would be required to pay for any previous usage, under true forward, customers purchase on a go forward basis only.  Customers are eligible for true forward if they have a 3-year term or longer for the relevant subscription licenses, agree to turn on telemetry or provide manual reporting, and are compliant with all terms & conditions. 

The terms of subscription license allow Veritas at its discretion to conduct periodic compliance reviews before a contract anniversary in case of exceptional usage.  Subject to eligible growth allowance under the annual true forward process, the customer will be required to purchase units for all quantities in excess of their original licensed quantity upon completion of the review (i.e., the purchasing event does not wait until the annual anniversary).

Customers who have at least a 3-year subscription term for the relevant software, provide usage reporting and participate in Periodic Reviews can true forward:

  • Customers receive a growth allowance of additional entitlements that represent 10% of their licensed quantity
  • If deployment exceeds 10% of entitlement, customers must purchase additional units at the next Periodic Review that are co-termed
  • Customers will not be charged for the in-year excess usage

Customers who have less than a 3-year subscription term for the relevant software are also required to provide usage reporting, but they are not entitled to true forward or the pricing benefit for additional units.  Customers are responsible for operating in compliance with their license entitlements. To prevent non-compliance, customers must purchase additional quantities ahead of demand.

No, there is not a different sell price. However, customers who do not enable telemetry will not be eligible for the pricing benefit (ability to purchase additional quantities at the initial subscription price) or the benefit of growth allowance.  Furthermore, reporting is a contractual requirement for subscription customers; if a customer refuses or fails to provide reporting and Veritas has not agreed to waive or remove the reporting requirement, then the customer is in breach of the license terms and their licenses may be subject to termination.

 

Conversion from Perpetual to Subscription

Yes, you need to purchase Extended or Sustaining Support on top of subscription in order to use older versions of the product.  The Services and Operational Readiness Tool outlines when Extended or Sustaining Support starts for each product version.

Services and Operational Readiness Tool

Veritas will allow customers to co-term multiple maintenance and support contracts and convert all of them to subscription.

Customers choosing to renew their current maintenance and support for perpetual licenses and not converting to subscription will have an uplift charged for their maintenance and support renewals at Veritas’ discretion.

Software licensing costs are capitalizable for BOTH perpetual AND term subscription licensing models. Your relationship with Veritas will not change in that regard. If a license is granted, the entire cost associated with the license is capitalizable upfront (i.e., CapEx budget spend). Maintenance and support spend is treated as OpEx under either perpetual or term subscription licensing models.

Veritas will continue to offer maintenance and support for existing perpetual licenses (with the exception of NetBackup Traditional). Maintenance and support will be provided at then applicable rates and will be subject to uplift at Veritas’ discretion.

No, there is no grace period for subscription renewal. Customers must renew their subscription on or before the last day of their active term.

Yes. Subscription licensing are eligible for CapEx accounting treatment under GAAP. Software licensing costs are capitalizable up-front (and subsequently amortized) and the allocable maintenance/support component is treated as OpEx costs for both perpetual and subscription licensing models.

 

Licensing

Veritas is not positioning VPAs for subscription licenses.  Customers can enjoy similar pricing assurance benefits and locked-in pricing with 3-year subscriptions. The pricing you pay today is locked in for the full 3-year period.

Veritas is phasing out E-Flex agreements as E-Flex is only available for perpetual software licenses.  An unlimited subscription contract is available to support customers that require the ability to deploy Veritas subscription software on an unlimited basis.

Yes.  Subscription licenses and associated subscription benefits are available under Veritas Corporate, Government and Academic licensing programs effective April 4, 2022. Existing contract-based licensing programs designed for subscription licenses are also available. Moving forward, Veritas is focusing on term subscription and SaaS licensing models. Existing licensing programs designed for perpetual software licenses will not be modified to include subscription software.

Yes, a VSPP’s perpetual licenses may be converted to subscription licenses, as subscription licenses have always been available under VSPP.  Furthermore, SKUs for new subscription offerings, including NetBackup Enterprise and NetBackup Data Mover, have been added to VSPP under existing program terms (per month / per GB).  There are no changes to the InfoScale SKUs already included in VSPP. For our Data Compliance & Governance portfolio, any product included in VSPP on a perpetual basis are also offered on a subscription basis.

Yes. There are no changes to TSPP resulting from the subscription program rollout.

Customers that transact with Veritas under standard terms and conditions can purchase subscription software licenses under existing processes. Effective April 4, 2022, Veritas’ licensing program terms have been updated to include the new subscription benefits and related terms.

Customers that have negotiated License Agreements with Veritas will generally follow existing processes, with the addition of signing a Subscription Addendum to their existing License Agreement to incorporate the new subscription benefits and related terms. 

Subscription SKUs have been included on Veritas price lists and transactable either direct with Veritas or through customer’s channel partner.

Your perpetual license entitlements will be removed from VEMS shortly after you complete your conversion to subscription.  Please notify your network administrators to download an export of existing license keys for reference prior to install base retirement as they will no longer be accessible in VEMS after your install base retirement has been processed.

You will be required to provide usage reporting for subscription software licensed after April 4, 2022.  Reporting will be provided on an automated or manual basis, as described in the subscription terms.  Automated reporting is enabled via different tools based on the product.  NetBackup leverages NBUDeployUtil while InfoScale leverages VIOM.  The reporting dashboard for all automated reporting is NetInsights.

No. While you can currently continue to renew maintenance and support for your perpetual licenses, any new licenses will only be sold on a subscription basis.

When your perpetual maintenance and support plan comes up for renewal, you will have 2 options:

  • Convert your installed base perpetual license to subscription license and get access to the newest subscription features and capabilities; or
  • Continue to renew your perpetual maintenance and support plans

As with any subscription, once it is allowed to expire you will no longer have the right to use that software and support. If you wish to start a new subscription later, you may do so at the then-current price.

You may maintain your perpetual licenses and purchase net new subscription licenses for the same product; you will not be required to convert your entire perpetual estate at that time.  We think it is easier for customers to convert to subscription and get access to all the benefits of our subscription program.

You relinquish your perpetual licenses and receive new subscription or SaaS entitlements.

The best way to protect any software investment is to remain current on software maintenance and support.  If you want to convert perpetual licenses that are not on an active maintenance contract, you will need to pay back maintenance before you can be converted to subscription. However, if your perpetual licenses have not been under maintenance and support for more than two years, you will need to purchase new subscription licenses.