How often do Azure agents get upgraded and what is the impact if they are not upgraded

Question

Hello All,

I have a question. How often do the below mentioned Azure agents get upgraded and what will be the impact if they are not upgraded:

1. Azure Guest agent
2. Backup agent
3. SQL Extension
4. MMA agent
5. Dependency agent

Answer 1

Hello JeevanreddyMandali-6862,

Generally, How often Azure agents are upgraded depends on your Administrator's "upgrade preference" & environment config.
It is recommended to always upgrade to the latest version as this guarantees you are running agents with the latest bug fixes, feature & performance enhancements.

Here's useful information on Agent management. Hope this helps.

Some agent-specific details for your reference:

1. Azure Guest Agent: Azure VM Agent for Windows is automatically upgraded. As new VMs are deployed to Azure, they receive the latest VM agent at VM provision time. Custom VM images should be manually updated to include the new VM agent at image creation time.
2. Backup agent: Once you've identified the servers that need an Azure Backup agent update, perform the following steps for each identified server (using Azure backup server or the MARS Agent). Download the latest version of the Azure backup agent before following the steps.
3. SQL Extension: The SQL Server IaaS extension is installed when you register your SQL Server VM with the SQL Server VM resource provider. If necessary, you also have the option to install the SQL Server IaaS agent manually via PowerShell: Set-AzVMSqlServerExtension
4. MMA agent: The Log Analytics agent for Windows aka Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA). The Log Analytics agent for Linux is often referred to as OMS agent. Use the Log Analytics agent to collect logs and performance data from virtual or physical machines outside of Azure
5. Dependency Agent: The Dependency agent collects discovered data about processes running on the virtual machine and external process dependencies.