About SAP ASE (Sybase) database backup on Azure VMs (preview)

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) (Sybase) databases are mission critical workloads that require a low recovery point objective (RPO) and a fast recovery time objective (RTO). You can now back up SAP ASE (Sybase) databases that are running on Azure virtual machines (VMs) by using Azure Backup.

This offering from Azure Backup aligns with the Azure Backup's concept of zero-infrastructure backups, which eliminate the need to deploy and manage the backup infrastructure. You can now seamlessly back up and restore SAP ASE (Sybase) databases that are running on Azure VMs. You can also apply the enterprise management capabilities that Azure Backup provides.

Key benefits of SAP ASE (Sybase) database backup (preview)

By using the Azure Backup service to back up and restore SAP ASE (Sybase) databases, you get the following advantages:

• 15-minute RPO: For stream-based backup, log backups are streamed every 15 minutes and can be applied in addition to the database backup, which provides Point-In-Time recovery capability.
• One-click, point-in-time restores: Restoration of production data to alternative ASE servers is made easy. Azure manages the chaining of the backups to perform the restore operations behind the scenes.
• Long-term retention: Required for rigorous compliance and audit needs. Retain your backups for years, based on the retention duration, beyond which the recovery points are pruned automatically with the built-in lifecycle management capability.
• Backup management from Azure: Use Azure Backup management and monitoring capabilities for improved management experience.
• Compression: To save on backup storage costs, enable ASE Native compression via backup policy.
• Striping: Enable Striping to increase the backup throughput between ASE Virtual Machine (VM) and Recovery services vault via preregistration script.
• Support for Cost-effective Backup policies : Weekly full + daily differential backups result in lower storage costs (as opposed to daily streaming full backups)
• Recovery Services Vault: All backups are streamed directly to the Azure Backup managed recovery services vault that provides security capabilities like Immutability, Soft Delete and Multiuser Auth. The vaulted backup data is stored in Microsoft-managed Azure subscription and is isolated from customer’s environment. These features ensure that the SAP ASE backup data is always secure and tamper-proof. You can also recover the data safely even when the source machines are compromised.
• Multiple Database Restore options: Support of Alternate Location Restore (System refresh), Original Location Restore, and Restore as Files.

To learn about the supported backup and restore scenarios, see the SAP ASE scenario support matrix.

Backup architecture for SAP ASE (Sybase) databases (preview)

You can back up SAP ASE (Sybase) databases that are running inside an Azure VM and stream backup data directly to the Azure Recovery Services vault.

• You begin the backup process by creating a Recovery Services vault in Azure. This vault will be used to store the backups and recovery points that are created over time.

• The Azure VM that's running the SAP ASE server is registered with the vault, and the databases to be backed up are discovered. To enable the Azure Backup service to discover databases, a preregistration script must be run on the ASE server as a root user.

• This script creates the AZUREWLBACKUPASEUSER database user or uses the custom Backup user you already created. It then creates a corresponding key with the same name in hdbuserstore. To learn more about the functionality of the script, see Back up SAP ASE (Sybase) databases in an Azure VM (preview).

• The Azure Backup service now installs the Azure Backup plugin for ASE on the registered SAP ASE server.

• The AZUREWLBACKUPASEUSER database user (created by the preregistration script or the custom Backup user you created, and added as input to the preregistration script) is used by the Azure Backup plugin for ASE to back up and restore. If you attempt to configure backup for SAP ASE (Sybase) databases without running this script, you might receive the UserErrorHanaScriptNotRun error.

• To configure a backup on the databases that you discovered, choose the required backup policy, and then enable backups.

• After you configure the backup, the Azure Backup service sets up the following Backint parameters at the database level on the protected SAP ASE server:

  • [catalog_backup_using_backint:true]
  • [enable_accumulated_catalog_backup:false]
  • [parallel_data_backup_backint_channels:1]
  • [log_backup_timeout_s:900)]
  • [backint_response_timeout:7200]

  Note

  Ensure that these parameters are not present at the host level. Host-level parameters will override these parameters and might cause unexpected behavior.

• The Azure Backup plugin for ASE maintains all the backup schedules and policy details. It triggers the scheduled backups and communicates with the ASE backup engine through the Backint APIs.

• The ASE backup engine returns a Backint stream with the data to be backed up.

• All the scheduled backups and on-demand backups (triggered from the Azure portal) that are either full or differential are initiated via the Azure Backup plugin for ASE. However, the ASE backup engine manages and triggers log backups.

• Azure Backup for SAP ASE, because it's a Backint-certified solution, doesn't depend on underlying disk or VM types. The backup is performed by streams generated by ASE.

Use Azure VM backup with Azure SAP ASE backup

In addition to using SAP ASE backup in Azure, which provides database-level backup and recovery, you can use the Azure VM backup solution to back up the operating system and nondatabase disks.

You can use the Backint certified Azure SAP ASE backup solution for database backup and recovery.

You can use an Azure VM backup to back up the operating system and other nondatabase disks. The VM backup is run once a day, and it backs up all disks except the Write Accelerator operating system disks and ultra disks. Because you're backing up the database by using the Azure SAP ASE backup solution, you can take a file-consistent backup of only the operating system and nondatabase disks by using the selective disk backup and restore for Azure VMs feature.

1. Restore a VM that's running SAP ASE using one of the following:

   • Restore a new VM from the Azure VM backup from the latest recovery point.
   • Create a new empty VM and attach the disks from the latest recovery point.

2. If Write Accelerator disks are excluded, they aren’t restored. In this case, create empty Write Accelerator disks and a log area.

3. After all the other configurations (such as IP, system name, and so on) are set, the VM is set to receive database data from Azure Backup.

4. Restore the database into the VM from the Azure SAP ASE (Sybase) database backup to your intended point in time.

Backup pricing

SAP ASE (Sybase) backup pricing has two components:

• Protected Instance cost: A flat rate per instance, irrespective of the ASE database size. This rate differs between regions.

• Backup Storage cost: Cost based on the storage space consumption for the backed-up data.

For example, if you're protecting 1.2 TB of ASE database in one instance running in the East US2 region, you are charged for the Protection Instance cost as per the East US 2 region per month and cost for the storage consumed.

Next steps

Learn how to:

• Back up SAP ASE (Sybase) databases on Azure VMs (preview)
• Restore SAP ASE (Sybase) databases on Azure VMs (preview)
• Manage SAP ASE (Sybase) databases backup (preview)