Backup Appliance
You can choose the size of the Azure VM running Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure during the deployment, or change it later as the environment grows.
General Recommendations
The following recommendations and examples apply to the latest Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure builds (6.0.0.234 or later).
Azure VM Size | Recommended Maximum Number of Protected Workloads |
|---|---|
B2s (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM with 32 GB premium SSD disk) | 300 |
D4s_v3 (4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM with 64 GB premium SSD disk) | 1,000 |
D8s_v3 (8 vCPU, 32 GB RAM with 128 GB premium SSD disk) | 3,000 |
When defining the Azure VM size and amount of RAM required for proper functioning of the backup appliance, take into account the following:
- The average amount of RAM consumed in the idle state (approximately 1.5 GB).
- 5% of the total appliance RAM required for the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure Web UI and REST API service.
- The maximum amount of RAM consumed by running policies. For more information, see Backup Policies.
Note that these values are provided for demonstration purposes only. For production environments, it is recommended that you allocate an additional margin of 20% RAM .
RAM Sizing Examples
Consider the following example. You configure a number of policies to protect your workloads by regularly creating snapshots and backups. In this case, it is recommended to allocate minimum 10 MB per 1 policy plus 1 MB per each workload in the policy.
The amount of RAM utilized by policies running on a backup appliance (Utilized RAM) depends on the total amount of RAM allocated to the appliance, the number of configured backup policies and the number of workloads protected by one policy. However, consider that the actual amount of RAM available for policy execution (Free RAM) will be also affected by the OS and Veeam services operation.
Total RAM | Recommended Number of Policies | Workloads per Policy | Utilized RAM1 | Free RAM2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
4 GB | 50 | 25 | (10 + (25 * 1)) * 50 = 1.7 GB | 4 GB - 1.5 GB - 4 GB * 0.05 = 2.3 GB |
8 GB | 50 | 75 | (10 + (75 * 1)) * 50 = 4.3 GB | 8 GB- 1.5 GB - 8 GB * 0.05 = 6.1 GB |
8 GB | 50 | 100 | (10 + (100 * 1)) * 50 = 5.5 GB | 8 GB - 1.5 GB - 8 GB * 0.05 = 6.1 GB |
16 GB | 200 | 50 | (10 + (50 * 1)) * 200 = 12 GB | 16 GB - 1.5 GB - 16 GB * 0.05 = 13.7 GB |
32 GB | 300 | 75 | (10 + (75 * 1)) * 300 = 25.5 GB | 32 GB - 1.5 GB - 32 GB * 0.05 = 28.9 GB |
1The table shows the maximum amount of RAM utilization when all policies run at the same time.
2Additional RAM required for any other software must be calculated separately.
Veeam Backup & Replication Integration
When you connect a backup appliance to the backup infrastructure, its backup policies, cloud-native snapshots, image-level backups, backup repositories and sessions imported into the Veeam Backup & Replication database.
You can connect multiple backup appliances to a single Veeam Backup & Replication server. However, when working in an Azure subscription with cross-region data transfer, it is recommended to use one Veeam Backup & Replication server per region, to help you avoid latency issues and meet potential data residency regulations.