FAQs

Overview

• How does the pricing model work?

  The new pricing model for Azure Backup has two components:

  • Protected instances: This is the primary billing unit for Azure Backup. Customers pay for the number of instances that are protected with the Azure backup service.
  • Storage: Customers can choose between Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) or Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS) for their backup vault. The net price for Storage depends on the amount of data stored with the service.

  These two components appear as separate line items on the monthly Azure bill.

• What is a protected instance?

  A protected instance refers to the computer, physical or virtual server you use to configure the backup to Azure. An instance is protected once you configure a backup policy for the computer, server, or database, and create a backup copy of the data. Subsequent copies of the backup data change the amount of storage consumed, but additional backup copies don’t add to the number of protected instances. Some common examples of protected instances are virtual machines, application servers, and personal computers running the Windows operating system. For example:

  • A virtual machine running the Hyper-V or Azure IaaS hypervisor fabric. The guest operating systems for these virtual machines can be Windows Server or Linux.
  • An application server with physical or a virtual machine running Windows Server and workloads with data to backup. Common workloads are Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange server, Microsoft SharePoint server, Microsoft Dynamics, and the File Server role on Windows Server. To back-up or protect these workloads, you’ll need Azure Backup Server or System Center Data Protection Manager, DPM.
  • A personal computer running the Windows operating system.
  • SQL Server which includes all databases on the server.

  If you choose to backup a virtual machine hypervisor fabric and its guest workload, the hypervisor fabric and the guest workload are treated as separate protected instances and are charged independently.

• Are all protected instances priced the same?

  No, from a billing perspective, instances are classified into three categories based on the size of the instance. The price per protected instance depends on the categorization of the instance in the pricing table above. Note that the prices in the above table do not include Storage which is a separate charge.

• Do I need to pay for restores and network egress?

  Customers will not be charged for any restore operations or outbound network bandwidth (egress) that is associated with restore operations.

• Which customers will get this new pricing?

  The new pricing will be applicable to all Azure Backup customers.

Protected Instances

• What if I start protecting a machine to Azure in the middle of the month – will I still have to pay the full protected instance price?

  No, usage is prorated based on the number of days in a month that an instance has been protected.

• What happens if I increase the retention of my backed up data and store more data with Azure Backup?

  All data stored with Azure Backup is billed per the backup storage rates listed above, for the duration that the data is kept with Azure Backup. However, increasing retention does not impact the software price for protected instances that you pay. Note that you must have the latest Azure Backup agent installed on the machine to ensure this behavior.

• What happens if I stop protection but retain data in my Azure Backup vault?

  For as long as your data is retained with Azure Backup, you will continue to pay for both Protected Instances and Storage. Your Protected Instances bill is based on the size from the last successful backup before you decided to stop protection. Your Storage bill is based on the total amount of data stored in the backup vault for that instance.

  For example, take the backup of a 100GB virtual machine. The Protected Instance charge is ¥ 63.29 per month. Every day 1GB of data is added and the data is retained for 120 days, and you are charged Storage for that separately. After 1 month if you decide the stop protection of the virtual machine but retain the data in Azure Backup, then you will be charged ¥ 63.29 per month until the backup data is explicitly deleted by you.

• Do I need to upgrade my Azure Backup agent?

  Yes, the Azure Backup agent needs to be upgraded to the latest version to take advantage of the new pricing. Using an older agent will adversely impact the size of protected instances being billed.

• Which customers will get this new pricing?

  The new pricing will be applicable to all Azure Backup customers.

Backup storage costs

• What will I be billed for on the storage side?

  All data stored with Azure Backup is billed per the backup storage rates listed above.

  Enable Azure backup instant restore will trigger snapshots cost .

• Would the Block Blob pricing be for LRS or GRS storage?

  This depends on the storage choice selected for the backup vault. The choice of storage for the backup vault are: Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) or Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS).

• Can I have two different vaults – one with LRS and one with GRS?

  Yes. The backup data in each vault will be billed at the appropriate LRS or GRS Block Blob rates for the region where the vault is located. The customer has complete control of the Azure storage bill with the vault choices that are picked.

• What contributes to backup storage consumed?

  The total amount of backup data held in Azure Backup (the “backend size”) for a specific Protected Instance can change due to the following factors:

  • Retention period of the backed-up data
  • Net new churn stored in each recovery point
  • Level of compression achieved on the backup data
  • Frequency of the scheduled backup jobs
  • Any associated backup metadata
• How can I find out the amount of backup storage consumed?

  The backup vault Dashboard page will show the total data from the machine registered to the vault. It will also show the type of storage used for the backup vault.

• Do I have to pay for storage transactions?

  As with the current pricing, you do not have to pay for storage transactions with Azure Backup. These are included as a part of the software price that you pay.

Networking costs

• I have signed up for ExpressRoute. What do I have to pay?

  ExpressRoute charges are not covered by Azure Backup. The customer will continue to pay for Azure Backup independently and for ExpressRoute based on the port speed that has been selected.

Examples

• Examples

  Host Computer	Workload	Size of Protected Instances	Billing Amount
  1 Windows host computer	Windows Server 2012 (documents/folders backup)	300 GB	￥63.29/month
  3 Windows host computers	Windows Exchange Windows Exchange Windows Exchange	600 GB 1,300 GB 400 GB	￥126.58/month ￥189.87/month ￥63.29/month
  1 Windows client computer	Windows 8.1 (documents/folders backup)	25 GB	￥31.65/month
  1 Hyper-V Virtual Machine	Virtual Machine backup	30 GB	￥31.65/month
  1 Windows guest computer	Windows Server 2012 (documents/folders backup)	120 GB	￥63.29/month
  1 Windows guest computer	Microsoft SQL Server (independent)	600 GB	￥126.58/month
  3 Windows guest computers	Microsoft SQL Server (cluster): Computer 1: 50 databases Computer 2: 75 databases Computer 3: 20 databases	70 GB 80 GB 15 GB	￥63.29/month+ ￥63.29/month+ ￥31.65/month Note: if the databases move around in the cluster, the size of the backup is used for calculation
  5 Windows guest computers	Complete SharePoint field including front-end and content database, etc.	1,300 GB	￥189.87/month (size of SharePoint field is larger than 1,000 GB and smaller than 1,500 GB) Note: A SharePoint field is a special entity, which is charged on the basis of the total size of protected data in it.

  *Azure storage is billed additionally based on backup choices

• If I use the Microsoft Azure Backup (MAB) server to backup data locally and not to Azure am I still charged for service usage?

  Yes, when using the MAB server to backup data locally you will still be charged the per instance backup service fee. However, since the data is only being backed up locally, you will not incur any Azure storage charges.