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Support matrix for backup of SAP ASE databases on Azure VMs

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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, China East, China East 2, China East 3, China North, China North 2, China North 3, US GOV Arizona, US GOV Texas, US GOV Virginia.		 Germany Central, Germany Northeast, US Gov IOWA, Azure Gov.
OS versions SLES 12 with SP0, SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, and SP5; SLES 15 with SP0, SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, and SP5, 15.6

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, 9.2
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).

Multi SID on single VM.		 HA 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, Multi SID on Single VM. HA 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, and Encryption at rest are supported.

Note

  • Azure Backup doesn’t automatically adjust for daylight saving time changes when backing up an 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 previous 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 Logical Volume Management (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.

Support for multiple SAP ASE instances on a single host

Azure Backup now enables seamless backups for multiple ASE (Sybase) database instances on Azure VMs, utilizing Multi-SID support. This advancement is particularly useful for shared VM environments, such as non-production setups, where multiple users require efficient data protection and recovery. SAP ASE Multi-SID support includes the following configurations:

Sap ASE instance Support
Standalone (SID1) + Standalone (SID2) Supported
HA (SID1) + Standalone (SID2) Supported
HA (SID1) + HA (SID2) Supported

*SID1 (HXE) and SID2 (HYE) represent two ASE instances running on the same host.

The following table lists the required parameters for adding/removing SAP ASE instances:

Action Parameter Description Example script
Add an instance --sid SAP ASE database instance that you want to protect.

By default, the first instance is selected.		 ./PreReg.sh --add --sid HXE

Or

./PreReg.sh --sid HXE

(Default mode is add for the script.)

After you add instances, registration needs to be done on recovery services vault. If a new instance is added later, re-registration is required.
sudo Add a SID from the Config file. "<Path_to_the_Pre-Reg_Script" -aw SAPAse --sid "<SID>" --sid-user "<sidUser>" --db-port "<dbPort>" --db-user <dbUser> --db-host "<dbHost>" --enable-striping <true/false> --skip-network-checks
Remove an instance --sid SAP ASE database instance that you want to remove protection from.

SID is a mandate parameter for remove.		 ./PreReg.sh --remove --sid HXE
sudo Remove a SID from the Config file. "<Path_to_the_Pre-Reg_Script" -aw SAPAse --sid "<SID>" --sid-user "<sidUser>" --db-port "<dbPort>" --db-user <dbUser> --db-host "<dbHost>" --enable-striping <true/false> --skip-network-checks --remove
--dbHost The private IP of the specific SID instance that you intend to register.

In multi-instance setups, each System ID (SID) might have a different private IP. Use the IP available in /sybase/<SID>/interfaces for the correct instance.

Note

If you have the preregistration script already installed, update the script name by running the following bash command:

sudo ./<script name> -us

Next steps