Licensing - Some enterprises have dedicated virtual clusters for SQL Server due to licensing constraints.Please refer to the following KB article for the configuration details High Availability - SQL Clustering and AlwaysOn Availability Group on external SQL Servers can be used for configuration database high availability.There may still be scenarios where a remote SQL Server is the better choice: It is still recommended to run the SQL Server locally (when resource and planning allow) on the backup server for lowest latency and highest performance. There are no specific edition requirements for neither SQL Express, Standard or Enterprise instance of SQL Server installed locally on the backup server.

It is possible to leverage a remote SQL Server as staging server during restores in Veeam Explorer products. Tip: It is recommended to run the database server on Microsoft SQL Server (Express) 2016 or higher. If none of the above apply, it is recommended to use Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition for the sake of simplicity. Such as encryption or table partitioning, the licensing level of the staging server (local or remote) must match the level of the original instance. When databases are using advanced features of Microsoft SQL Server.When working with databases larger than 10GB, SQL Server Express cannot mount the databases. For Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SQL Server or Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint. When unable to configure an external staging server.When using Files to Tape jobs extensively, the database may grow significantly, and the 10GB limitation may be exceeded quickly.Veeam Backup & Replication console and job processing may however slow down as a result of CPU and RAM constraints on the SQL Server Express instance. The max database size allowed by Express Edition is usually sufficient, so do not consider this a constraint. It is recommended to install Standard or Enterprise Edition if any of the following apply:

Each instance uses only up to four cores of the first CPU.Each instance uses only up to 1GB of RAM.It does however have several limitations 1 which may affect performance: Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express Edition is included in the Veeam Backup & Replication setup which is a convenient option for most smaller deployments. Please see the following recommendations to ensure your Veeam setup will scale to the size of your infrastructure. It may be either a local or remote SQL Server with several licensing options available.

When planning the Veeam Backup & Replication deployment, you must choose the placement of the configuration database. Veeam Backup & Replication stores all information about backup infrastructure, jobs settings, job history, sessions and other configuration data in a Microsoft SQL Server database. This site uses Just the Docs, a documentation theme for Jekyll.

Restoring VMs to an HPE 3PAR with thin disks.

Backup Repository HA using Windows Storage Replica.

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