Auto-Scaling for Azure VM Access Nodes

Auto-scaling, combined with power management, can reduce the cost of using Azure access nodes to back up VMs. With auto-scaling, the Commvault software deploys access nodes in Azure regions only when they are needed, and then uses power management (which is enabled by default) to power off and decommission the access nodes soon after you use them.

Support for auto-scaling of Azure VM access nodes is as follows:

• The following operations are supported:

  • All types of backups, including backup copies

  • Full restores

  • Replication

• Azure hypervisors that use managed identity authentication are not supported. If you have a hypervisor that uses managed identity authentication and you want to use it for auto-scaling, change the authentication method to traditional.

Creation and Decommissioning of Access Nodes

Access nodes are created in the regions of the guest VMs that are being backed up or restored. The regions are specified in the VM provisioning settings. For information, see .

If access nodes already exist in the guest VM regions, then those access nodes are used, and additional access nodes are created only if necessary.

Number of Access Nodes That Are Created for Backups

The Commvault software determines the number of access nodes to create for backups based on the following characteristics:

• The Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

• The throughput rate

• The number of data readers that are configured for the VM group

• The Maximum number of access nodes setting in the Auto scale settings dialog box

Number of Access Nodes That Are Created for Restores

The Commvault software determines the number of access nodes to create for restores based on the following characteristics:

• The number of VMs that are being restored

• The load on auto-scaled access nodes

• The Maximum number of access nodes setting in the Auto scale settings dialog box

Decommissioning of Access Nodes

When an operation is initiated, any automatically scaled access nodes that are powered off are powered on and used.

During an operation, access nodes that complete their functions are powered off after being idle for 5 minutes, even if other access nodes are still performing functions for the operation.

After an operation completes, if no activity occurs on an access node for 30 minutes, then the access node is deleted from both the Command Center and the Azure portal.

If you manually remove an access node from its server group, then the access node is not automatically deleted from the Command Center or the Azure portal. You must add the access node back to the server group so that it can be automatically deleted.

Log Files

You can view the log files for automatic scaling at the following location on the CommServe server: Commvault\ContentStore\iDataAgent\JobResults\CV_JobResults\AutoScale.