Maintaining SAP Workloads on Azure
Operations and monitoring
Ongoing maintenance covers patching, backup, monitoring, and cost control. Use Azure Backup or native database backup to a storage account or Azure Backup vault; HANA backups should follow the certified backint integration. Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and the SAP monitoring extension provide telemetry; alerts should cover VM health, disk latency, and backup success. Patching must respect SAP support: kernel and database patches follow SAP Notes, while OS patching uses Azure Update Manager with maintenance windows.
Common traps
Questions often test start/stop automation - deallocating VMs outside business hours saves compute cost but requires orderly SAP shutdown first. Another trap is backup retention versus compliance, and the assumption that managed disk snapshots alone constitute a valid HANA backup. Watch for monitoring gaps: the SAP extension must be healthy for Azure to report SAP system status. Also remember that resizing a VM requires a stop/deallocate and that the new size must remain SAP-certified.
Worked example
A team wants to cut cost on a development S/4HANA system. Rule of thumb: schedule automated shutdown of the app and database VMs after hours using Azure Automation or Logic Apps, with SAP stopped gracefully first, and keep backups independent of the VM lifecycle. Verify the resize target is certified before changing size.