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Exchange Online Mailbox metering

  • 27 October 2021
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Hi, Exchange Online detects ~2500 mailboxes in the Exchange Office 365 app. The customer shows me a screenshot indicating he has only 1250 Microsoft 365 E3 licenses assigned. What causes this mismatch, is there a problem, are more Commvault user licenses necessary? Thanks.

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Best answer by Mike Struening RETIRED 6 December 2021, 22:35

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Mike Struening RETIRED
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@iConsultant , are you seeing 2500 backed up and getting ‘counted’ in the licensing?  I’m pretty sure we don’t back up non-licensed MBs so I’m curious if you’re asking in advance, or if you are seeing overage in the license now.

Thanks!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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Hi Mike,

I see:

  • 2392 Mailboxes mentioned in Command Center (Exchange Office 365 app)
  • 2392 Total Mailboxes mentioned in the first Exchange Online backup job I started
  • 1250 Microsoft 365 E3 Assigned licenses in a screenshot of the customer
  • 0 of Total 1250 Mailboxes used in Licensing and Registration

I have suspended the first backup, reason why I not see any used mailboxes yet in Licensing and Registration.

I just don't want to resume the job, which has already backed up a number of mailboxes by the way, before this is cleared.

Maybe I should open a ticket for this.

Thanks.

 

Mike Struening RETIRED
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Let me look into this for you before we create a case.  I believe I have the answer here:

  1. In Exchange Online, you have 2392 mailboxes, of which 1250 are licensed in Azure/MSFT 365/Exchange Online
  2. The backup ‘sees’ all 2392, and ‘intends’ to back them up
  3. however, for each unlicensed mailbox, we will give this error:
    1. Invalid mailbox license. So skipping mailbox
  4. The backup will complete and only protect 1250, which is what you will see in your CV license usage

I am 99% sure that is what will happen, though I want to confirm with our docs team.

From what we state here:

https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/114734_office_365_components_in_usage_calculation_01.html

Usage Decrease

License usage can decrease because of any of the following actions:

  • Exchange Mailbox Agent:

    • Removing existing mailboxes from subclient content.

    • Disabling backup activity on a subclient with mailboxes as content.

I want to ensure that we don’t ‘count’ skipped at all, as well as how we handle protected mailboxes that are unlicensed after the fact.

I’ll let you know what the docs team confirms (and have the docs updated)!

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@Mike Struening Hi, I resumed the job and it is backing up more than the number of licensed mailboxes (job not yet finished). I have all reasons to believe it is backing up Shared Mailboxes and Group Mailboxes, which do not need a Microsoft E3 license (and hopefully Commvault backs up for free). Although the job is not yet finished, I am pretty convinced now that everything works as designed.

Mike Struening RETIRED
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Let me know how it looks when completed and Licensing is applied.

I’m still working with a few groups to narrow down our expectations.

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Hi @Mike Struening , The job has completed and successfully backed up 2324 mailboxes. Licensing indicates 1347 Commvault licenses have been used, which is 107% of purchased Commvault licenses (1250). Again, the customer has only 1250 Exchange Online licenses, of which only 1222 are in use. This is a little bit annoying because the customer thinks he asked for the correct amount of Commvault licenses, our Sales Dept. thinks they have a done an absolutely fantastic job and now this all should go through different channels / purchase orders again, with me being asked to provide an explanation soonest :slight_smile: (not really) . Fortunately 107% is not 110% so I think there is no hurry here.

Mike Struening RETIRED
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Yeah, that’s an unfortunate place to find yourself.  Do you know which mailboxes are the ‘extras’?

I’m working with our docs team to get this all updated to avoid these issues going forward; I’m just now really curious as to where those extras came from.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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Hi, I just counted and Commvault “sees” in Command Center 1328 user mailboxes. The rest are shared and group mailboxes (which are also backed up). Of these 1328 mailboxes, Commvault indicated 8 were “not processed” (leaves 1320 backed up). How this fits in with 1347 Commvault licenses in use and only 1250 Exchange Online mailbox E3 licenses, I don't know. As long as the total percentage of over usage is less than 110%, fortunately there doesn't seem to be a problem.

Mike Struening RETIRED
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Might be shared mailboxes.

I heard back from our dev team:

MSFT consumes a license for user mailboxes but for shared mailboxes they don’t. Similarly we consume license only for user mailboxes which are licensed by Microsoft.

All other types of mailboxes will not be included.

I asked for the docs to get updated to clarify.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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Hi, Today I happened to see that a colleague of me has opened a Ticket (Incident 211019-182) for a similar issue at a different customer. It shows among others 2 screenshots: 1 of a mailbox not being processed in Command Center, and one of that same mailbox consuming a Commvault license. I will wait if that ticket will be resolved. Hope this helps!

Mike Struening RETIRED
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It does!  I’ll track the case as well.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
Mike Struening RETIRED
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FYI, @iConsultant I created a doc MR in your name to get this all clarified in our documentation.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
Mike Struening RETIRED
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@iConsultant , how is this looking?  I saw that dev provided the following:

From Development checks,  license for the user “<User email> is calculated from journaling client “<DAG CLIENT>“.
We have attached list of the users for licenses that are getting calculated for journaling . see attach XLS file.
 
So this user license is not calculated from the user mailbox client, therefore current License calculation working as design.
 
Let me know if this is now resolved/understood.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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Hi Mike, I am not in charge of this ticket, but in that case I guess we can close this one. Thanks so far!

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