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Manage and monitor backed up SAP HANA databases

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This article describes common tasks for managing and monitoring SAP HANA databases that are running on an Azure virtual machine (VM) and backed up to an Azure Backup Recovery Services vault by the Azure Backup service.

You'll learn how to monitor jobs and alerts, trigger an on-demand backup, edit policies, stop and resume database protection, and unregister a VM from backups.

Note

Support for HANA instance snapshots is in now generally available.

If you haven't configured backups yet for your SAP HANA databases, see Back up SAP HANA databases on Azure VMs. To earn more about the supported configurations and scenarios, see Support matrix for backup of SAP HANA databases on Azure VMs.

Run on-demand backups

Backups run according to the policy schedule.

To run on-demand backups, follow these steps:

  1. On the left pane of the Recovery Services vault, select Backup items.

    Screenshot that shows the 'Backup items' link on the Recovery Services vault dashboard.

  2. On the Backup Items blade, select the Backup Management Type as SAP HANA in Azure VM.

    Screenshot shows how to select the backup management type.

  3. On the Backup Items (SAP HANA in Azure VM) blade, select the VM that's running the SAP HANA database, and then select Backup now.

  4. On the Backup Now pane, choose the type of backup that you want to perform, and then select OK.

    The retention period of this backup is determined by the type of on-demand backup you want to run.

    • On-demand full backups are retained for a minimum of 45 days and a maximum of 99 years.
    • On-demand differential backups are retained as per the log retention set in the policy.
    • On-demand incremental backups aren't currently supported.

  5. Monitor the Azure portal notifications. To do so, on the Recovery Services vault dashboard, select Backup Jobs, and then select In progress.

    Note

    • Based on the size of your database, creating the initial backup might take a while.
    • Before a planned failover, ensure that both VMs/Nodes are registered to the vault (physical and logical registration). Learn more.

Monitor manual backup jobs

Azure Backup shows all manually triggered jobs in the Backup jobs section of Backup center.

Screenshot that shows the 'Backup jobs' section of 'Backup center'.

The jobs that are displayed in the Azure portal include database discovery and registering, and backup and restore operations. Scheduled jobs, including log backups, aren't shown in this section. Manually triggered backups from the SAP HANA native clients (Studio, Cockpit, and DBA Cockpit) also aren't shown here.

Screenshot that shows the 'Backup jobs' list.

To learn more about monitoring, go to Monitor Azure Backup workloads in the Azure portal and Monitor at scale by using Azure Monitor.

Monitor backup alerts

Alerts are an easy means of monitoring backups of SAP HANA databases. Alerts help you focus on the events you care about the most without getting lost in the multitude of events that a backup generates.

Azure Backup lets you set alerts, which you can monitor by doing the following:

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

  2. On the left pane of the Recovery Services vault, select Backup Alerts.

    Screenshot that shows the 'Backup Alerts' link on the Recovery Services vault dashboard.

    The Backup Alerts pane opens.

    Screenshot that shows a list of backup alerts on the 'Backup Alerts' pane.

  3. To view alert details, select the alert:

    Screenshot that shows the details of an alert.

With Azure Backup, you can send alerts by email. These alerts are:

  • Triggered for all backup failures.
  • Consolidated at the database level by error code.
  • Sent only for a database's first backup failure.

Manage operations using the Azure portal

This section describes several Azure Backup supported management operations that make it easy to manage a backed-up SAP HANA database.

Change a policy

You can change the underlying policy for an SAP HANA backup item.

Note

For HANA snapshots, the new HANA instance policy can have a different resource group or another user-assigned managed identity. Currently, the Azure portal performs all validations during the backup configuration. So, you must assign the required roles on the new snapshot resource group or the new user-assigned identity by using the CLI scripts.

On the Backup center dashboard, go to Backup Instances, and then do the following:

  1. Choose SAP HANA in Azure VM as the datasource type.

    Screenshot that shows where to choose 'SAP HANA in Azure VM'.

  2. Choose the backup item whose underlying policy you want to change.

  3. Select the existing Azure Backup policy.

    Screenshot that shows where to select existing backup policy.

  4. On the Backup Policy pane, change the policy by selecting it in the dropdown list. If necessary, Create a new backup policy.

    Screenshot that shows the dropdown list for changing the backup policy.

  5. Select Save.

    Screenshot that shows the 'Save' button for changing the backup policy change.

Making policy modifications affects all the associated backup items and triggers corresponding configure protection jobs.

Edit a policy

To modify the policy to change backup types, frequencies, and retention range, follow these steps:

Note

  • Any change in the retention period will be applied to both the new recovery points and, retroactively, to all older recovery points.

  • For HANA snapshots, you can edit the HANA instance policy to have a different resource group or another user-assigned managed identity. Currently, the Azure portal performs all validations during the backup configuration only. So, you must assign the required roles on the new snapshot resource group or the new user-assigned identity by using the CLI scripts.

  1. On the Backup center dashboard, go to Backup Policies, and then select the policy you want to edit.

    Screenshot that shows where to select the policy to edit.

  2. On the Backup policy pane, select Modify.

    Screenshot that shows the 'Modify' button for changing the backup policy.

  3. Select the frequency of the backups.

    Screenshot that shows where to select the backup frequency.

Modifying the backup policy affects all the associated backup items and triggers corresponding configure protection jobs.

Upgrade from SDC to MDC

Learn how to continue backing up an SAP HANA database after you upgrade from a single container database (SDC) to a multiple container database (MDC).

Inconsistent policy

Occasionally, a modify policy operation can lead to an inconsistent policy version for some backup items. This happens when the corresponding configure protection job fails for the backup item after a modify policy operation is triggered. It appears as follows in the backup item view:

Screenshot that displays a message saying that the policy is inconsistent and provides a link for fixing the issue.

You can fix the policy version for all the impacted items in one click:

Screenshot that shows the 'Fix Inconsistent Policy' pane.

Upgrade from SDC to MDC without a SID change

Learn how to continue backing up an SAP HANA database whose SID hasn't changed after your upgrade from an SDC to an MDC.

Upgrade to a new version in either SDC or MDC

Learn how to continue backing up an SAP HANA database whose version you're upgrading.

Stop protection for an SAP HANA database or HANA instance

You can stop protecting an SAP HANA database in a couple of ways:

  • Stop all future backup jobs and delete all recovery points.
  • Stop all future backup jobs and leave the recovery points intact.

If you choose to leave recovery points, keep these details in mind:

  • All recovery points will remain intact forever, and all pruning will stop at stop protection with retain data.
  • You'll incur charges for the protected instance and the consumed storage. For more information, see Azure Backup pricing.
  • If you delete a data source without stopping backups, new backups will fail.

Note

For HANA instances, first stop the protection of the HANA instance, and then stop protection of all related databases; otherwise, the stop protection operation will fail.

To stop protection of a database:

  1. On the Backup center dashboard, select Backup Instances.

  2. Select SAP HANA in Azure VM as the datasource type.

    Screenshot that shows where to select 'SAP HANA in Azure VM'.

  3. Select the database for which you want to stop protection.

  4. On the database menu, select Stop backup.

    Screenshot that shows where to select 'Stop backup'.

  5. On the Stop Backup menu, select whether to retain or delete data. Optionally, you can provide a reason and comment.

    Screenshot that shows where to select to retain or delete data.

  6. Select Stop backup.

Resume protection for an SAP HANA database or HANA instance

When you stop protection for an SAP HANA database or SAP HANA instance, if you select the Retain Backup Data option, you can later resume protection. If you don't retain the backed-up data, you can't resume protection.

To resume protection for an SAP HANA database:

  1. Open the backup item, and then select Resume backup.

    Select resume backup

  2. On the Backup policy menu, select a policy, and then select Save.

Re-register an extension on the SAP HANA server VM

The workload extension on the VM might sometimes be adversely affected for one reason or another. If it is, all operations that are triggered on the VM will begin to fail. You might then need to re-register the extension on the VM. The re-register operation reinstalls the workload backup extension on the VM for operations to continue.

Use this option with caution: when it's triggered on a VM with an already healthy extension, the operation will cause the extension to restart. This might in turn cause all the in-progress jobs to fail. Before you trigger a re-register operation, check for one or more of the symptoms.

Unregister an SAP HANA instance

Unregister an SAP HANA instance after you disable protection but before you delete the vault:

  1. In the Recovery Services vault, under Manage, select Backup Infrastructure.

    Screenshot that shows the 'Backup Infrastructure' link on the Recovery Services dashboard.

  2. For Backup Management type, select Workload in Azure VM.

    Screenshot that shows where to select the 'Backup Management Type' as 'Workload in Azure VM'.

  3. On the Protected Servers pane, select the instance to unregister. To delete the vault, you must unregister all servers and instances.

  4. Right-click the protected instance, and then select Unregister.

    Select unregister

Verify the registration status of VMs or Nodes to the vault

Before a planned failover, ensure that both VMs/Nodes are registered to the vault (physical and logical registration). If backups fail after failover/fallback, ensure that physical/logical registration is complete. Otherwise, rediscover the VMs/Nodes.

Confirm the physical registration

Go to the Recovery Services vault > Manage > Backup Infrastructure > Workload in Azure VM.

The status of both primary and secondary VMs should be registered.

Screenshot shows the physical registration status.

Confirm the logical registration

Follow these steps:

  1. Go to Recovery services vault > Backup Items > SAP HANA in Azure VM.

  2. Under HANA System, select the name of the HANA instance.

    Screenshot shows how to select the database name.

    Two VMs/Nodes appear under FQDN and are in registered state.

    Screenshot shows the logical registration status.

Note

If status is in not registered state, you need to rediscover the VMs/Nodes and check the status again.

Manage operations using SAP HANA native clients

This section describes how to manage various operations from non-Azure clients, such as HANA Studio.

Note

HANA native clients are integrated for Backint-based operations only. Snapshots and HANA System Replication mode-related operations are currently not supported.

Backup via Backint

On-demand backups that are triggered from any of the HANA native clients that use Backint are displayed in the backup list on the Backup Instances page.

Screenshot that shows the 'Restore points' pane for viewing the most recently run backups.

Note

You can also monitor the backups from the Backup jobs page.

These on-demand backups are also displayed in the list of restore points on the Select restore point pane.

Screenshot that shows a list of restore points.

Back up to local files instead of Backint

To back up local files, in the SAP HANA native client (HANA Studio/Cockpit), change the target to local filesystem instead of Backint.

Then HANA dumps the backups to the mentioned filesystem path and Azure Backup (the Backint service) places the subsequent catalog on that path using the basepath_catalogbackup parameter.

Restore the backups

Restore operations that are triggered from HANA native clients that use Backint to restore backups to the same machine can be monitored from the Backup jobs page.

Restore operations that are triggered from HANA native clients to restore to another machine aren't allowed. This is because, according to Azure role-based access control (RBAC) rules, the Azure Backup service can't authenticate the target server for restore operations.

Delete the backups

The delete operation from HANA native clients isn't supported by Azure Backup, because the backup policy determines the lifecycle of backups in the Azure Recovery services vault.

Clean up HANA catalog

The Azure Backup service currently doesn't modify the HANA backup catalog as per the policy. Because you can store the backup locally (outside of Backint), you need to maintain the lifecycle of the catalog. You can clean up the catalog as per the SAP documentation and Azure Backup (the Backint service) places the subsequent catalog in the path specified by the basepath_catalogbackup parameter.

Next steps