Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure 7 Release Notes

This document provides last-minute information on Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure v7, including system requirements, installation, as well as relevant information on technical support, documentation, online resources and so on.

The GA version of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure v7 is available starting from July 2nd, 2024.

What’s New

Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure delivers Azure-native, fully automated backup and recovery to easily protect and manage all your Azure data.

Azure Cosmos DB protection — manage your Azure Cosmos DB protection alongside your other Azure workloads with Veeam. Enhance your PostgreSQL database protection by adding an extra backup layer on top of native Azure capabilities: safeguard your data against various types of outages and data loss by utilizing hot, cool, and archive repositories, with optional immutability through Azure Storage. Benefit from flexible policy-based scheduling and experience seamless database recovery to either the original or a new location.

Virtual network configuration backup copy — enhance your virtual network configuration protection by adding an extra layer of security. Enable backup copies to hot or cool, immutable or non-immutable repositories to prevent potential data loss or corruption. Easily import backup copies to any Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure appliance for hassle-free restores.

Workers in another subscription/tenant — optimize your resource management by selecting the tenant, subscription, and resource group for worker deployment. This capability streamlines resource and cost management for backup and restore operations while ensuring adherence to internal security standards and regulations. Deploy workers in a dedicated subscription or within the same subscription as your protected resources for improved efficiency and compliance.

Imageless deployment — deploy backup appliances directly from the Veeam Backup & Replication server to reduce complexity and enhance the efficiency of managing your infrastructure. This method ensures a consistent environment, significantly reducing the likelihood of configuration errors and improving the reliability of your deployments.

System Requirements

Hardware

Standard_B2s or Standard_B2ms are the recommended VM sizes for the backup appliance:

• CPU: 2 cores (minimum)
• Memory: 4 GB (minimum)

Note: if you want to protect a large number of Azure VMs, please choose a bigger Azure VM size.

For more information about Azure VM sizes, see Microsoft Docs.

For the latest recommendations on deployment sizing, see the Sizing and Scalability Guidelines section in the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide.

Workers

Standard_F2s_v2 is the recommended and default worker size for standard backup.

Standard_E2_v5 is the recommended and default worker size for archive backup.

Software

Latest versions of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome are required to access the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure Web UI from your local machine.

The Azure VM running Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure is deployed with the pre-installed set of software components:

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
• ASP.NET Core Runtime 8.0
• PostgreSQL 15.5
• nginx 1.24
• libpam-google-authenticator 20191231-2
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure installation packages

Installing Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure

Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure is installed on an Azure VM that is created in a selected Azure subscription during the product installation. You can deploy Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure only from the Veeam Backup & Replication Console.

For the detailed step-by-step installation procedure, see the Deployment section in the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide.

Upgrading Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure

To upgrade Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure to the next version, the backup appliance must be running version 3 or later. The upgrade can be performed only using Microsoft Azure Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication.

To install available security and OS updates, download and install them from the appliance Web UI.

For more information, see the Updating Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure section in the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide. 

Integration with Veeam Backup & Replication

This section provides last-minute information about Microsoft Azure Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication 12.7.0.218, including system requirements and deployment, as well as relevant information on technical support, documentation, online resources and so on.

The Microsoft Azure Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication is available for download starting from July 2nd, 2024. You can download the plug-in at the Veeam Backup & Replication: Download page: Additional Downloads section, Cloud Plug-ins tab.

After you install Microsoft Azure Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication, you must add a Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure appliance to the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure. For details, see the Adding Appliances section in the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide. 

Hardware and Software Requirements

Since Microsoft Azure Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication is installed on a Veeam Backup & Replication server, system requirements for the plug-in are similar to requirements for the Veeam Backup & Replication server.

Veeam Backup & Replication

Microsoft Azure Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication supports integration with Veeam Backup & Replication version 12.1.2.

Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure Plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication supports integration with Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure version 7.

Azure Services

The Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure appliance and worker instances must have outbound internet access to a number of Microsoft Azure services. For the list of services, see the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide.

Licensing

Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure is licensed using the Veeam Universal License (VUL) installed on the Veeam Backup & Replication server. For more information on Veeam licensing terms and conditions, see Veeam End User License Agreement (EULA).   

Known Issues

General

• During backup policy creation, the Cost Estimation step of the wizard may display an incomplete list of protected Azure VMs. To resolve the issue, click Rescan at the Sources step of the backup policy wizard.
• The cost calculator returns “?” values for snapshots of Azure VMs.
• Cost estimation calculation can be slow when a large number of snapshots is defined.
• The cost calculator may return N/A values for Azure SQL backup policies when using a staging server to process databases. This issue resolves itself after the first policy run.
• The cost calculator may return zero values for backup policies when using containers as a source for backups. This happens when the initial discovery process has not been completed yet. To resolve this issue, wait for 5-10 minutes and re-launch the policy wizard to review the cost estimation data.
• Under certain conditions, large bundled support logs may fail to be downloaded. To resolve the issue, collect only specific logs requested by the Veeam Customer Support Team.
• It may take up to 40 minutes for the backup appliance to update the Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL database size on the Resources tab after you make changes in Microsoft Azure.

Infrastructure

• By default, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure does not download and check the CRL file of the storage account when creating a repository. To enable the check, contact the Veeam Customer Support Team.
• If you enable boot diagnostics with managed storage account on worker instances, Microsoft Azure creates a dedicated storage account. This account will not be automatically removed by the backup appliance after the worker is deallocated.
• Under certain circumstances, storage queues associated with deallocated workers may remain in storage accounts.
• When adding a new worker configuration, you may receive a warning that Microsoft.Storage.Global endpoint does not exist in the selected virtual network even if it does. The reason is that the check is performed for all 3 required service endpoints: Microsoft.Sql, Microsoft.AzureCosmosDB and Microsoft.Storage.Global. Add missing endpoints to eliminate the warning. For more information, see the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide.
• If the Entra application associated with the service account specified in the Cosmos DB backup policy settings is lost or deleted from Microsoft Azure, the Edit Backup Policy wizard might fail to retrieve the policy name. Enter the name manually to proceed with the wizard.
• If a repository is added to multiple backup appliances, retention sessions running on different appliances will ignore the ownership setting and may corrupt backups stored in the repository.

Upgrade

• The Backup Size column on the Protected Data tab will not display any values until a backup policy protecting the corresponding resource runs successfully at least once.
• After upgrading from v4, backup policies with enabled archives may temporarily display a question mark in the Transaction column on the Cost Estimation step. This issue gets resolved after the first successful policy run.
• After upgrading from v5 or earlier, the security and package updates are not installed on the backup appliance automatically. To resolve this issue, update the appliance manually as described in the Installing Updates section in the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide.
• After upgrading from v5a or later, the Workers page may no longer display the subscription and resource group where workers are deployed. However, this does not impact the worker deployment process. To update the deployment settings, select the location manually.
• When the backup appliance has an Ultra Disk or a Premium SSD v2 disk attached, Veeam Backup & Replication is unable to revert the appliance to a snapshot if the upgrade operation fails. To workaround the issue, it is recommended to detach the disk before performing the upgrade and reattach it afterward.
• After completing the upgrade operation, if you navigate to the Web UI using the link in the Veeam Backup & Replication console, the previous login session might still be active. To resolve the issue, refresh the page.

Backup

• The default worker profile (Standard_F2s_v2) may run out of memory after creating 100 or more restore points. To resolve the issue, use a different worker profile.
• A backup appliance cannot detect Azure VM snapshots created by other backup appliances. This limitation does not apply when restoring a configuration backup to a new appliance.
• Due to Microsoft limitations, backup policies protecting Windows-based Azure VMs with the enabled guest processing option notify on success even if the PowerShell script fails. To work around the issue, add necessary exceptions to the script.
• It may take up to 10 minutes for Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure to connect to a staging server when processing Azure SQL Managed instances.
• Application-aware processing for Azure VMs that belong to a subnet with NAT gateway enabled may fail due to the missing Microsoft.Network/natGateways/join/action permission. As a workaround, assign the Virtual Network Restore role to the service account or manually add the permission to the Entra application.
• When backing up Azure SQL Managed instances using a staging server, both the Azure SQL backup and Azure SQL restore roles must be assigned to the service account selected in the policy settings.
• When you modify the daily schedule of an Azure SQL backup policy, the less frequent schedules may be automatically updated to use the earliest time specified in the daily settings.
• Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL accounts manually excluded from the backup policy scope may still appear in the Processing Options step of the backup policy wizard. However, these accounts will not be processed during the backup session.

Restore

• When restoring an Azure VM that contains a cloud-init script, the script becomes active during the first boot.
• When restoring files to the original location, the notification bell incorrectly displays a Success status even if the operation fails. However, the Session Log page accurately reflects the operation status.
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure ignores Microsoft Azure locks on existing databases when restoring databases to the original location.
• If a service account used by a backup policy for creating VM snapshots is removed, the entire VM and disk restore from these snapshots might fail. To resolve the issue, either manually rescan the region where the snapshots are located or wait for the automatic infrastructure rescan performed every 24 hours.

Configuration Restore

• Under certain circumstances, the worker configuration check performed during the configuration restore may fail when using service and repository accounts from the same tenant with a different set of permissions. No user action is required.
• Connection to the backup appliance using SSH fails if the original user is no longer present in the OS list of users after the configuration restore.
• Under certain circumstances, the repository check performed after the configuration restore may fail when some Azure SQL resources were deleted but are still registered in the configuration backup. To resolve the issue, click Recheck at the Configuration Check step of the restore wizard.
• When restoring a configuration backup containing numerous virtual network restore points, there might not be enough space on the data disk to start the restore. To resolve this, increase the data disk size in Microsoft Azure and expand the ext4 partition on the data disk.

REST APIs

• To review the detailed change log and breaking changes in the REST API v7, see the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure REST API Reference.

Veeam Backup & Replication Integration

• When you deploy Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure from the Veeam Backup & Replication console, the default service account is automatically created on the backup appliance. It is connected to the same Entra application as the Azure compute account used for deployment, and shares the same permissions. For more information, see the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide.
• Job and job session reports are not supported for backup policies created in Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure.
• When removing the backup appliance from the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure, you also remove all Blob Storage backup repositories for which credentials are not set. To remove the connected resources from Microsoft Azure, see the Removing Appliances section in the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure User Guide.
• Backups and snapshots of Azure VMs, Azure SQL, Azure Files, Azure Cosmos DB accounts and Azure virtual network configurations cannot be removed using the Veeam Backup & Replication console.
• Running configuration restore sessions are not displayed in the list of system sessions in the Veeam Backup & Replication console.
• Azure compute account must be re-added to the backup console if it was registered as an existing one in Veeam Backup & Replication v11 and earlier.
• Backup and snapshot size for restore points created by backup appliances is not displayed in the Veeam Backup & Replication console.
• If a user in Veeam Backup & Replication is assigned several roles, the user will be able to perform Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure operations available to the role with the highest priority. Thus, if the user has both the Veeam Backup Operator and Veeam Restore Operator roles, this user will act as the restore operator.

Technical Documentation References

If you have any questions about Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure, use the following resources:

• Product web page
• Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure documentation
• Veeam R&D forums

Technical Support

Veeam offers email and phone technical support for customers on maintenance and during the official evaluation period. For better experience, please provide the following information when contacting Veeam Customer Support:

• Version information for the product and all infrastructure components
• Error message and/or accurate description of the problem you are having
• Log files

To submit your support ticket or obtain additional information, please visit the Veeam Customer Support Portal. Before contacting Veeam Customer Support, consider searching for a resolution on Veeam R&D Forums.

Contacting Veeam Software

At Veeam Software, we pay close attention to comments from our customers — we make it our mission to listen to your input, and to build our products with your suggestions in mind. We encourage all customers to join Veeam R&D Forums and share their feedback directly with the R&D team.

Should you have a technical or licensing issue or question, please feel free to contact our Customer Support organization directly. We have qualified technical and customer support staff available 24/7 who will help you with any inquiry that you may have.

Customer Support

For the most up-to-date information about our support practices, business hours and contact details, please visit the Veeam Customer Support Portal.

Company Contacts

For the most up-to-date information about company contacts and office location, please visit the Veeam Contacts Webpage.