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Managing Worker Instances

To perform most data protection and disaster recovery operations (such as creating and removing EC2 image-level backups, restoring backed-up data, EFS indexing), Veeam Backup for AWS uses worker instances. Worker instances are Linux-based EC2 instances that are responsible for the interaction between the backup appliance and other Veeam Backup for AWS components. Worker instances process backup workload and distribute backup traffic when transferring data to backup repositories.

Each worker instance is launched in a specific AWS Region for the duration of the backup, restore and retention process. AWS Regions in which Veeam Backup for AWS launches worker instances to perform operations are predefined and described in section Architecture Overview. However you can choose whether you want Veeam Backup for AWS to launch worker instances in the backup account or in production AWS accounts, specify network settings and instance types that will be used to launch worker instances.

Note

You can tell worker instances from other EC2 instances running in your environment by their names — all worker instances deployed by Veeam Backup for AWS to perform backup and restore operations have the same name — VBA_Worker, all worker instances deployed by Veeam Backup for AWS to perform EFS indexing have the same name — EFS_Worker.

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