Considerations and Limitations

When you plan to use Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure, keep in mind the following limitations and considerations.

Backup

Before you start protecting Azure resources, consider the following:

• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support backup of resources in private environments.
• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support backup of Azure VMs whose source disks have the data access authentication mode enabled. For more information on the data access authentication mode, see Microsoft Docs.
• Due to Microsoft Azure limitations, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support backup of Ephemeral OS disks.
• You can create SQL backup policies to protect only Azure SQL databases running on SQL Servers and databases located on SQL Managed Instances. If you want to protect a database hosted by a SQL Server on Azure VM, create an Azure VM backup policy. Note that in this case, you will not be able to restore a single database without restoring the entire VM.
• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support backup of databases hosted by Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instances and SQL Servers on Azure Arc-enabled servers.
• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure uses BACPAC files to back up SQL databases. BACPAC export of databases with external references is not supported. If a SQL database was migrated to an Azure SQL Database Server or Azure SQL Managed Instance, make sure to clear legacy references, orphaned database users and credentials set up with authentication types not supported by Azure SQL, to avoid BACPAC export errors. To learn more about BACPAC files, see Microsoft Docs.
• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support adding of Azure SQL Server accounts using Microsoft Entra ID authentication. To add an Azure SQL Server account, you must specify credentials of a SQL Server Admin account.
• Due to Microsoft Azure limitations, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support backup of NFS Azure file shares.
• If you delete a file share from Microsoft Azure, all the snapshots of this file share will be deleted as well. To protect your snapshots from accidental deletion, you can use the file share soft delete option. For more information on the soft delete option for Azure Files, see Microsoft Docs.
• Before you create an Azure files backup policy, make sure that the Allow storage account key access option for Shared Key authorization is enabled for the storage accounts where the file shares that you plan to protect reside — otherwise, backup operations will fail. For more information on Shared Key authorization, see Microsoft Docs.
• Due to Microsoft Azure limitations, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support retention of locked snapshots. This means that Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure will not be able to remove an outdated snapshot during a retention session if the snapshot is protected from deletions and modifications using the lock feature. For more information on the lock feature, see Microsoft Docs.
• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure runs retention sessions at 12:00 AM according to the time zone set on the backup appliance, so it is not recommended to schedule backup policies to execute at 12:00 AM. Otherwise, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure may not be able to run retention sessions.

Restore

Before you start restoring Azure resources, consider the following:

• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support restore of Azure confidential VMs. For more information on Azure confidential VMs, see Microsoft Docs.

• When performing restore operations, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure assigns Azure tags to the processed resources. If you have any Azure policies that do not allow tag assignment, the restore operations will fail. To learn more about Azure policies, see Microsoft Docs.
• When performing disk restore to a new location, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not attach the restored virtual disks to any Azure VM — the disks are placed to the specified location as standalone virtual disks.

• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support file-level recovery for volumes with Windows-native Data Deduplication enabled. For more information on the deduplication feature, see Microsoft Docs.
• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support restore to the original location of locked Azure VMs and Azure virtual disks. For more information on the lock feature, see Microsoft Docs.

• File-level recovery is supported for the following file systems only: FAT, FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, ext4, XFS, Btrfs.
• For Microsoft Windows systems, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure supports file-level recovery for Microsoft Windows basic volumes only. If you use Windows Storage Spaces to store data, restore an entire Azure VM to get access to your files and folders. For more information on Storage Spaces, see Microsoft Docs.
• Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Azure does not support file-level recovery to the original location for files and folders of Arm-based Azure VMs. For more information on Arm-based Azure VMs, see Microsoft Docs.

Azure Disk Encryption

Azure Disk Encryption is supported with the following limitations:

• Backup and restore operations are supported within one Azure region only. If you choose to back up or restore your data to another region, you must first migrate to the target region all Azure key vaults, cryptographic keys and secrets used to encrypt the source Azure resources, as described in Microsoft Docs.
• File-level recovery is not supported for VMs whose virtual disks are encrypted using Azure Disk Encryption. That is, you cannot restore and browse guest OS files on disks encrypted by BitLocker for Windows-based Azure VMs, by DM-Crypt for Linux-based Azure VMs, as well as by any custom disk encryption tools.

For more information on Azure Disk Encryption, see Microsoft Docs.

Supported Microsoft Azure Regions

Veeam Data Cloud supports the following Microsoft Azure regions where you can store your backups:

• Australia East
• Canada Central
• Germany West Central
• North Europe
• Southeast Asia
• Sweden Central
• UAE North
• UK South
• East US
• West US