Best practices for backup in Azure

Neo4j Graph Platform Operations
,
1

Hello,

We've deployed Neo4J in Azure (as a VMSS from the marketplace, configured with just one vm) with an Enterprise license and are looking for best practices on production backup for disaster recovery. Before scripting a scheduled backup (using neo4j-admin to save a backup to a file store), we wanted to confirm there are no features of Azure that can be used to create a backup (at any level, e.g. vmss, vm, or disk). Really appreciate any directions and/or validation that our conclusions having reviewed Azure's features (as detailed below) is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Henry.

  • Backup Vault Recovery Services- Not applicable to scale sets
  • Backup Vault - Discs not accessible, it’s like they don’t exist outside of the scale set. We can’t find any docs on whether this should be possible or not.
  • Scale Set Replication & Site Recovery should be possible, but only for ‘flexible’ orchestration VMSSs. The current orchestration is 'uniform' and we can't find if/how to change this.
2

@henry.bruce

in short
a. if you have a enterprise license you can open a ticket at support.neo4j.com
b. backup is only supported via what is described at Backup and restore - Operations Manual ( though not initially described and presuming this is a Neo4j v5 install ) anything other is not supported
c. whether Azure or any other platform b. above applies

3

Thanks Dana.

Are you able to liaise with the team to understand if there's a reason why the Neo4j on Azure ARM deployment template doesn't use flexible orchestration (and thus enabling Azure-native site recovery)? This Azure feature has been in GA since November 2021 while (from the GitHub history) the Neo4j template was created in January 2022.