#FAQs

#Will your backup services incur other costs during backup?

It varies depending upon the backup services used. Generally, if you only use the Microsoft Entra ID service and Admin Portal Settings service, you will not experience additional costs for backup.

If your subscription contains Azure VM, Azure Storage, Amazon EC2, Azure SQL, SQL Server, VMware, or Google Cloud Storage, your backup services may incur additional costs on the protected Azure VM and Storage, Amazon EC2 instance, Azure SQL database, Microsoft SQL Server in Azure VM, VMware, or Google Cloud Storage for data transfer, snapshots, operations, or API calls, etc. For details, refer to the table below:

Service	Additional Costs	Pricing Reference
Azure VM	Snapshots The cost could be higher if you perform more backups and keeps more snapshots.	For the snapshots pricing, refer to this Microsoft page.
Azure VM	Data transfer The cost will increase if the data is transferred out of the region where the Azure VMs reside, or out of Azure, especially if you are using different storage types.	For details, refer to this Microsoft page: Bandwidth pricing.
Azure VM	Index generation for exporting VM files The cost will increase if the Azure VMs to protect are in a region different from where your AOS is signed up for Additionally, if the data is stored in a storage type other than Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, the expenses will also rise. *Note: It is recommended to generate an index for VM files in the Restore wizard instead of enabling index generation during a backup job; otherwise, the costs would be higher.	For details, refer to this Microsoft page: Bandwidth pricing.
Azure VM	CAP Gateway mode There will be additional costs for hosting CAP Gateways if you perform backups using the CAP Gateway mode.
Azure Storage	Read operations and Data retrieval for backup	For details, refer to the following Microsoft pages: Azure Blob Storage pricing Azure Files pricing
Azure Storage	Data transfer The cost will increase if the data is transferred out of the region where the blob storage or file shares reside, or out of Azure, especially if you are using different storage types.	For details, refer to the following Microsoft pages: Azure Blob Storage pricing Azure Files pricing
Azure Storage	CAP Gateway mode There will be additional costs for hosting CAP Gateways if you perform backups using the CAP Gateway mode.
Amazon EC2	Snapshots; EBS direct API for snapshots.	For details on the pricing, refer to Amazon EBS pricing. To save costs, you can reduce the backup frequencies.
Amazon EC2	Data transfer It could be higher if data is transferred out of the region where the EC2 instance resides, or out of Amazon, if you are using a different storage type.	For details, refer to Amazon EC2 On-Demand Pricing.
Amazon EC2	CAP Gateway mode There will be additional costs for hosting CAP Gateways if you perform backups using the CAP Gateway mode.
Azure SQL	There will be additional costs if you use the Azure SQL backup service. To minimize the impact on production environment databases during Azure SQL backup jobs, the database data is copied to a temporary database before the backup process begins. This approach may incur additional costs.	For details, refer to Azure SQL Database pricing.
Azure SQL	CAP Gateway mode There will be additional costs for hosting CAP Gateways if you perform backups using the CAP Gateway mode.
Microsoft SQL Server in Azure VM	Data transfer The cost will increase if the data is transferred out of the region where the Azure VMs reside, or out of Azure, especially if you are using different storage types.	For details, refer to this Microsoft page: Bandwidth pricing.
Microsoft SQL Server in Azure VM	CAP Gateway mode	There will be additional costs for hosting CAP Gateways if you perform backups using the CAP Gateway mode.
VMware	Data transfer There will be outbound costs when the data is transferred from VMware to backup storage.
VMware	CAP Gateway mode There will be additional costs for hosting CAP Gateways if you perform backups using the CAP Gateway mode.
Google Cloud Storage	Read/Write operations and Data retrieval for backup	For details, refer to Storage pricing - Google Cloud.
Google Cloud Storage	Data transfer The cost will increase when you move or copy data from one Cloud Storage bucket to another or when another Google Cloud service accesses data in your Cloud Storage bucket.	For details, refer to Storage pricing - Google Cloud.
Google Cloud Storage	CAP Gateway mode There will be additional costs for hosting CAP Gateways if you perform backups using the CAP Gateway mode.

#Is the AWS storage available for Cloud Backup for IaaS + PaaS?

Yes, Cloud Backup for IaaS + PaaS supports the Amazon S3 storage as an available option for both AvePoint hosted default storage location and BYOS location. Additionally, it supports the Amazon S3-Compatible storage as a BYOS option. For more details about storage, refer to Manage Your Storage.

The Amazon S3 storage and Amazon S3-Compatible storage are available for all AvePoint backup products. However, the Amazon S3 storage is available as an AvePoint hosted default storage location only for Cloud Backup for IaaS + PaaS and Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365.

#How does the retention policy work for Azure VM backups?

The backup process for Azure includes saving snapshots to Microsoft Azure and storing the backup data to your storage location. Snapshots are required to ensure data consistency and enable faster recovery process.

When configuring backup scopes for Azure virtual machines, you can configure the retention policy to set when to prune the snapshots from Azure and the backup data from the storage location.

• Snapshots in Azure - You can configure the number of snapshots to keep or how long the snapshots will be retained.

• Backup data in storage - You can configure the retention period for daily, hourly, and weekly recovery points.

For details on how to configure the retention policy for Azure VMs, refer to Create a New Backup Scope for Azure VM.