This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Before You Begin

Before you restore a machine to Microsoft Azure, mind the following prerequisites and limitations.

Prerequisites

The following are prerequisites for restoring VMs:

  • You must configure the following objects in Microsoft Azure beforehand:
    • Storage account whose resources you plan to use to store disks of the restored machine.
    • Networks to which you plan to connect the restored machine.

For storage accounts and network configuration, you must use the same deployment model that you plan to use for machine restore.

  • [For restore of Linux machines] You must configure a helper appliance in the location to which you plan to restore a machine. For more information, see Configuring Helper Appliances.
  • [For speeding up the restore] If you plan to restore machines to a distant location, you can configure Azure proxies through which machine disks will be transported to blob storage. For more information, see Configuring Microsoft Azure Proxies.

[For speeding up restore from Capacity Tier] It is strongly recommended to use Azure proxy when you restore from backups residing on a Capacity Tier. For more information, see Configuring Microsoft Azure Proxies.

  • You must create a backup of the machine that you want to restore in Microsoft Azure. For the list of supported backups, see Restore to Microsoft Azure.
  • You must set up correct time on the backup server. Otherwise you may not be able to add a Microsoft Azure account to Veeam Backup & Replication, or the restore process may fail.

Limitations

The following are limitations for restore to Azure:

  • Veeam Backup & Replication supports restore to Microsoft Azure for the following machines:
    • Microsoft Windows machines running Windows Server 2008/Windows Vista and later
    • Linux machines (see the Supported Distributions & Versions section in Microsoft Docs).
  • [Azure VMs] Veeam Backup & Replication does not support restore of Azure Ultra Disks.
  • [Azure VMs] Mind the following limitations for disk sizes:
  • [Unmanaged VM disks] Veeam Backup & Replication supports restoring of disks equal to or less than 4093 GB. This is due to the following reasons: VM disks can increase in size up to 2 GB because of conversion during the restore process; Azure supports disk up to 4095 GB. For more information on all disk sizes that Azure supports, see Microsoft Docs.
  • [Managed VM disks] Veeam Backup & Replication supports restoring of disks equal to or less than 8190 GB. During the restore process, VM disks can increase in size up to 2 GB because of conversion. For more information on all managed disk sizes that Azure supports, see Microsoft Docs. Note that supported disk sizes for Azure and Veeam Backup & Replication differ.

Important

The price of a restored VM disk can become higher because of the increase in disk size during the restore process. For more information on pricing, see Managed Disks pricing and Unmanaged Disk and Page Blob pricing.

  • [Azure Stack VMs] Veeam Backup & Replication supports restoring of managed and unmanaged disks equal to or less than 1021 GB. This is due to the following reasons: VM disks can increase in size up to 2 GB because of conversion during the restore process; Azure Stack supports disk up to 1023 GB. For more information on all disk sizes that Azure supports, see Microsoft Docs.

You can change the maximum supported size for unmanaged VM disks with a registry key. For more information, contact Veeam Customer Support.

Important

The price of a restored VM disk can become higher because of the increase in disk size during the restore process. For more information on pricing, see Azure Stack Hub Pricing.

  • If the system disk of an initial machine uses the GPT partitioning scheme, the number of partitions on the disk cannot exceed 4. During restore such disk will be converted to a disk with the MBR partitioning scheme.
  • The restore to Microsoft Azure functionality does not support the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit program.
  • [For restore from backups created with Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows] Machines from a backup that contains a failover cluster are restored as separate VMs, not as a cluster. Shared cluster disks of these VMs are restored as regular disks