Support matrix for backup of SAP ASE databases on Azure VMs (preview)
This article summarizes the scenarios supported and limitations present when you use Azure Backup to back up SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) (Sybase) databases on Azure VMs.
Note
The frequency of log backup can now be set to a minimum of 15 minutes. Log backups only begin to flow after a successful full backup for the database.
Scenario support for SAP ASE (Sybase) databases on Azure VMs
| Scenario | Supported configurations | Unsupported configurations |
|---|---|---|
| Topology | SAP ASE Database running in Azure Linux VMs only. | Windows |
| Regions | Americas – Canada Central, Canada East, Brazil South. Asia Pacific – Australia Central, Australia Central 2, Australia East, Australia Southeast, Japan East, Japan West, Korea Central, Korea South, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Central India, South India, West India. Europe – West Europe, North Europe, France Central, France South, UK South, UK West, Germany North, Germany West Central, Switzerland North, Switzerland West, Central Switzerland North, Norway East, Norway West, Sweden Central, Sweden South. Africa/ME - South Africa North, South Africa West, UAE North, UAE Central. |
Central US, East US 2, East US, North Central US, South Central US, West US 2, West US 3, West Central US, West US, Germany Central, Germany Northeast, US Gov IOWA, Azure Gov, China East, China East 2, China East 3, China North, China North 2, China North 3. |
| OS versions | SLES 12 with SP0, SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, and SP5; SLES 15 with SP0, SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, and SP5 RHEL 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.6, 7.7, 7.9, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4,8.5, 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.9, 8.10 |
|
| ASE versions | SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise 16.0 SP02, SP03, SP04 | |
| ASE Instances | A single SAP ASE instance on a single Azure Virtual Machine (VM). | HA and multi SID on single VM isn't currently supported. |
| Backup types | Full, Differential, and Log backups. | Incremental, archival support is currently not available. |
| Restore types | ALR-Alternate Location Restore, OLR-Original Location Restore (In-Place), Restore as Files. | |
| Cross Subscription Restore | Supported via the Azure portal. Cross Subscription Restore to Paired Region. |
Region of Choice isn't supported. |
| Number of full backups per day | One scheduled backup. Three on-demand backups. We recommend not to trigger more than three backups per day. However, to allow user retries for failed attempts, hard limit for on-demand backups is set to nine attempts. |
|
| ASE deployments | Standalone | HA, Multi SID on Single VM. |
| Compression | You can enable ASE Native compression via the Backup policy and when you take an on-demand Backup/Backup Now. In Preregistration Script, Compression Level is set to Level 101 for Optimal results. | |
| Striping Support | You can increase your backup throughput by enabling Striping configuration, which needs to be set in Preregistration script – refer parameters enable-striping - Set to true and stripesCount set to 4 by Default and can be adjusted. | |
| Azure CLI/PowerShell | Azure CLI/PowerShell support is currently not available. | |
| Security Capabilities | Immutability, Soft Delete, MUA, Private Endpoint, Encryption at rest are supported. |
Note
- Azure Backup doesn’t automatically adjust for daylight saving time changes when backing up a SAP ASE (Sybase) database running in an Azure VM. We recommend you to modify the policy manually as needed.
- You can now monitor the backup and restore jobs (to the same machine) triggered from ASE native clients (SAP ASE Studio/Cockpit/DBA Cockpit) in the Azure portal.
Support for multistreaming data backups
Parameters to enable SAP ASE settings for multistreaming:
- parallel_data_backup_backint_channels
- data_backup_buffer_size (optional)
Note
The above ASE parameters lead to increased memory and CPU utilization. We recommend that you monitor the memory consumption and CPU utilization as overutilization might negatively impact the backup and other ASE operations.
Backup performance for databases: The performance gain becomes more prominent for larger databases.
Database size applicable for multistreaming: The number of multistreaming channels applies to all data backups larger than 128 GB. Data backups smaller than 128 GB always use only one channel.
Supported backup throughput: Multistreaming currently supports the data backup throughput of up to 1.5 GBps. Recovery throughput is slower than the backup throughput.
VM configuration applicable for multistreaming: To utilize the benefits of multistreaming, the VM needs to have a minimum configuration of 16 vCPUs and 128 GB of RAM.
Limiting factors: Throughput of total disk LVM striping and VM network, whichever hits first.
Learn more about SAP ASE (Sybase) Azure Virtual Machine storage and SAP ASE (Sybase) Azure virtual machine Premium SSD storage configurations. To configure multistreaming data backups, see the SAP documentation.