Episode #218
Introduction
In episode 218 of our SAP on Azure video podcast we talk about Azure Backup for SAP. Pradeep Saran talks about the recent price reductions, and the public preview of Azure Backup for SAP for ASE. Join Pradeep to learn more what you can do today!
Find all the links mentioned here: https://www.saponazurepodcast.de/episode218
Reach out to us for any feedback / questions:
- Robert Boban: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rboban/
- Goran Condric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gorancondric/
- Holger Bruchelt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holger-bruchelt/
#Microsoft #SAP #Azure #SAPonAzure #Backup #SAPASE
Summary created by AI
- Introduction to SAP on Azure Podcast:
- Goran introduced the SAP on Azure podcast, mentioning that the episode would cover Azure Backup for SAP, including reduced pricing and new database support.
- Podcast Introduction: Goran welcomed the audience to the SAP on Azure podcast, episode 280, and introduced the main topics of the session, which included Azure Backup for SAP, reduced pricing, and new database support.
- Participants: Goran mentioned that Robert and Holger would be joining the discussion, although Robert was not present at the start of the recording.
- Session Focus: The session was highlighted as focusing on Azure Backup for SAP, emphasizing its importance for SAP systems and the concept of zero infrastructure backup.
- Overview of Azure Backup:
- Pradeep Saran provided an overview of Azure Backup, highlighting its support for diverse workloads, including on-prem servers, Azure VMs, SQL, HANA, Sybase, and more. He emphasized the service’s flexibility and built-in security features.
- Service Overview: Pradeep explained that Azure Backup is a managed service supporting diverse workloads such as on-prem servers, Azure VMs, SQL, HANA, Sybase, Azure Files, PostgreSQL, and disks. The service is designed to manage backups end-to-end with a consistent workflow across different workloads.
- Data Plane: Pradeep highlighted the data plane, focusing on the Recovery Services Vault, which is air-gapped and offers multiple replication options (LRS, GRS, RA-GRS) and multiple tiers (snapshot, standard, archive) for flexible configuration and cost savings.
- Security Features: Pradeep emphasized the built-in security features of Azure Backup, including RBAC, encryption at rest (both Azure-managed and customer-managed keys), soft delete, and immutable vaults to protect against ransomware and insider attacks.
- Management Plane: Pradeep described the management plane, Azure Business Continuity Center (ABCC), which provides a single pane of glass view to manage multiple vaults, subscriptions, and resource groups, enhancing the ease of backup management.
- Private Endpoints: Pradeep mentioned the increasing adoption of private endpoints by customers, which enhances security and performance by enabling a secure connection between VMs and the Recovery Services Vault within the Azure network.
- Azure Backup Pricing Update:
- Pradeep Saran discussed the recent price reduction for HANA backup, explaining the shift from slab-based pricing to a flat fee model, resulting in significant cost savings for customers.
- Old Pricing Model: Pradeep explained the old slab-based pricing model, where customers were charged $80 for every 500GB of HANA database size, leading to higher costs for larger databases.
- New Pricing Model: Pradeep introduced the new flat fee pricing model, effective from September 1st, which charges a flat fee of $80 per protected instance, regardless of the database size, resulting in significant cost savings, especially for large databases.
- Cost Savings: Pradeep highlighted the substantial cost savings with the new pricing model, providing examples where customers with large databases (e.g., 10TB) would see a reduction from $1600 to $80, representing up to 95% savings.
- Customer Feedback: Pradeep mentioned the positive feedback received from customers regarding the new pricing model, emphasizing its impact on reducing backup costs for productive databases.
- Snapshot Backup Pricing:
- Pradeep Saran explained the changes in snapshot backup pricing, noting the increase in the slab size from 500GB to 5TB, which leads to substantial cost savings for customers.
- Old Snapshot Pricing: Pradeep described the old snapshot backup pricing model, which charged customers $80 for every 500GB slab, leading to higher costs for larger databases.
- New Snapshot Pricing: Pradeep explained the new snapshot backup pricing model, which increased the slab size to 5TB, significantly reducing costs for customers with large databases.
- Cost Savings: Pradeep provided an example where customers with 30TB databases would see their costs reduced from $4800 to $480, representing a 90% savings.
- Automatic Application: Pradeep assured customers that no configuration changes are required to benefit from the new pricing, as it will be automatically applied to existing and new customers.
- Compression and Multistreaming:
- Pradeep Saran highlighted the benefits of enabling compression and multistreaming backup, which can lead to further cost savings and improved performance for customers.
- Compression Benefits: Pradeep explained that enabling HANA native compression at the database level can reduce storage size by 30-40%, leading to further cost savings on backup storage.
- Multistreaming Benefits: Pradeep described how enabling multistreaming backup allows multiple streams of data transfer between the VM and the Recovery Services Vault, improving backup performance and reducing load times.
- Cost and Performance: Pradeep emphasized that the combination of compression and multistreaming can significantly reduce backup costs and enhance performance, making it a best practice recommendation for customers.
- Implementation: Pradeep mentioned that compression and multistreaming can be enabled through backup policies, and customers are advised to test these features to ensure optimal performance and resource utilization.
- Overall Cost Savings:
- Pradeep Saran presented examples of overall cost savings for small, medium, and large enterprise customers, demonstrating significant reductions in backup costs with the new pricing and compression features.
- Small and Medium Enterprises: Pradeep provided examples showing that small and medium enterprises could achieve overall cost savings of 45% to 62% by implementing the new pricing model and enabling compression.
- Large Enterprises: Pradeep highlighted that large enterprises with multiple instances and large databases could see cost savings of 50% to 60% in their total backup costs.
- Compression Impact: Pradeep explained that enabling compression further enhances cost savings by reducing the storage size, leading to lower storage costs.
- Customer Examples: Pradeep used telemetry data to illustrate the cost savings for different customer scenarios, emphasizing the significant financial benefits of the new pricing and compression features.
- Roadmap for Azure Backup:
- Pradeep Saran shared the roadmap for Azure Backup, including the recent launch of public preview for Sybase ASE backup and upcoming support for Oracle. He also mentioned the introduction of additional capabilities like compression, striping, and cross-region restore.
- Sybase ASE Backup: Pradeep announced the public preview launch of Sybase ASE backup, highlighting its importance for customers using non-HANA databases like Sybase, Oracle, and DB2.
- Oracle Support: Pradeep mentioned that support for Oracle databases is currently in development, expanding the Azure Backup service’s capabilities to more database types.
- Additional Capabilities: Pradeep discussed new features such as compression, striping (equivalent to multistreaming for HANA), and cross-region restore, which enhance the backup service’s functionality and security.
- Cross-Region Restore: Pradeep explained that cross-region restore allows customers to replicate backups to a secondary region, providing a cost-effective disaster recovery solution without the need for a continuously running VM in the secondary region.
- Scale-Out Support for HANA Backup:
- Pradeep Saran announced the upcoming support for scale-out HANA backup, initially without HSR and later with HSR, to cater to customers using scale-out deployments.
- Demo of Sybase ASE Backup:
- Pradeep Saran provided a demo of the Sybase ASE backup process, showcasing the discovery of databases, backup configuration, and various restore options. He also highlighted security features like private endpoints and immutable vaults.
- Conclusion and Feedback:
- Goran concluded the session, expressing appreciation for the detailed presentation and highlighting the significant benefits of the new features and pricing for customers. He invited viewers to leave comments and questions on the YouTube channel.
Video index
- 0:00 Intro
- 1:50 Introducing Pradeep Saran
- 2:30 What is Azure Backup
- 9:10 Lower Pricing
- 12:55 New Pricing + Compression
- 16:50 Public Preview of SAP ASE Backup
- 20:30 ASE Compression
- 22:30 Striping
- 26:00 Scale-out support for HANA Backup (backint)
- 28:20 Scale-out support for HANA Backup (Snapshot)
- 29:20 Demo - ASE Backup
- 37:05 Demo - Restore