Billing for On-Premise Virtual Machines backup to Azure Recovery Service Vault

Question

Billing for On-Premise Virtual Machines backup to Azure Recovery Service Vault

PiotrMiernicki 21

Hello,

I'm a little concerned about how will I be billed by Microsoft when I'll protect my On-Premise Virtual Machine running on Windows Server in the following scenario:

I use Microsoft Azure Backup Server. Let's say that I have one of Domain Controllers in my local network. On the Domain Controller I have a few additional roles and services running (Sub CA, DNS Server, File shares). To have a full backup of the server and have a possibility to recover the whole server in case of disaster + recover other services and specific files I'm setting up protection of the server using DPM agent in the following way:

A Share protection
A Volume protection
A System Protection (BMR + System State)

Online protection is enabled for the whole protection group. As you can see on the screenshot above the summary of the protection group shows 6 members in total. 2 of them are VMware virtual machines, but the next 4 members are backup items for the Windows Server Virtual Machine.

In a Recovery Service Vault the backup items are shown following:

What will be the overall cost of the VM backup? Let's assume that for this calculation the VM total size is 50 GB. An instance, in this case, is counted as a protected server, so the cost will be 5 USD + cost of storage consumed by the 2 backup items or the backup items will be counted as separated instances, so I will be billed twice for the same protected server?

Thank you in advance,
Piotr

SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2021-07-28T09:45:01.15+00:00

@PiotrMiernicki Thank you for reaching out!

As the file share, volume and Systemstate\BMR is from same protected server it will be considered as single protected instance and the billing instance should be 5$ as that is the size of the VM.

I am reconfirming the billing instance part with Azure Backup team, will update you soon.
PiotrMiernicki 21 Reputation points

2021-08-12T10:57:16.527+00:00

Hello @SadiqhAhmed-MSFT ,

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, I'm still not sure how it will be calculated.

I understand that when DBs are backed up, the protected server size is counted based on sum of the size of the databases. The same in case of Files and whole Virtual Machines (Hyper-V, Vmware) backup. I'm still not sure how does it work when we will do a backup using DPM Agent installed inside the VM and setting up a backup of System State/BMR + File Shares/Volumes. If size of System State/BMR backup is for example 50 GB and Volume/File Share backup size is 30 GB and both 'backup items' are backed up by the same DPM Agent, the base instance size should be counted as sum of the source backup items' size (80 GB)? Are the backup items counted in summary as one 80 GB instance of the same server or as separate instances (one instance 50 GB and one instance 30 GB)?

Thank you in advance,
Piotr
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2021-08-12T19:01:44.263+00:00

@PiotrMiernicki

If there is System State Backup of 500Gb, File/Folder backup of 100 GB and let’s say SQL database backup of 500 GB of same protected server then as the total data source size 1100GB it will be 3 billing instance.

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SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2021-07-28T09:45:01.15+00:00

@PiotrMiernicki Thank you for reaching out!

As the file share, volume and Systemstate\BMR is from same protected server it will be considered as single protected instance and the billing instance should be 5$ as that is the size of the VM.

I am reconfirming the billing instance part with Azure Backup team, will update you soon.
PiotrMiernicki 21 Reputation points

2021-08-12T10:57:16.527+00:00

Hello @SadiqhAhmed-MSFT ,

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, I'm still not sure how it will be calculated.

I understand that when DBs are backed up, the protected server size is counted based on sum of the size of the databases. The same in case of Files and whole Virtual Machines (Hyper-V, Vmware) backup. I'm still not sure how does it work when we will do a backup using DPM Agent installed inside the VM and setting up a backup of System State/BMR + File Shares/Volumes. If size of System State/BMR backup is for example 50 GB and Volume/File Share backup size is 30 GB and both 'backup items' are backed up by the same DPM Agent, the base instance size should be counted as sum of the source backup items' size (80 GB)? Are the backup items counted in summary as one 80 GB instance of the same server or as separate instances (one instance 50 GB and one instance 30 GB)?

Thank you in advance,
Piotr
SadiqhAhmed-MSFT 49,331 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2021-08-12T19:01:44.263+00:00

@PiotrMiernicki

If there is System State Backup of 500Gb, File/Folder backup of 100 GB and let’s say SQL database backup of 500 GB of same protected server then as the total data source size 1100GB it will be 3 billing instance.

Answer 1

@PiotrMiernicki Apologies for the delayed response.

For DPM we calculate Managed instance count based on the protected server instance (PS). We add up the front end size of all the data source belonging to a protected server instance and then calculate the managed instance count on the final value.
AFAIK , DPM is responsible for creating the protected server instance.

a) For SQL Db: usually all the SQL DBs belong to 1 PS therefore we add-up the size of all DBs and calculate the Managed instance count on the final value and same goes with file folder volumes.
b) VM : Each VM is treated as a separate protected server instance which means that we charge manage instance per VM that get protected.

Hope this answers your question!

Thanks once again, Much appreciate your patience.

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Billing for On-Premise Virtual Machines backup to Azure Recovery Service Vault

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