WSFC : WINDOWS FAILOVER CLUSTER SQL Server Always On AG

[amineadil25]

Hi everyone

Hope you are doing well

I have a question regarding backing up a Windows Failover Cluster (SQL Server Always On AG) using Veeam Agent for Windows

For context, I have the following cluster architecture with 7 nodes in total:

-2 nodes in synchronous commit mode (configured for automatic failover)

-5 nodes in asynchronous commit mode (used purely as read-only replicas for SELECT queries)

When configuring the Veeam Agent backup for this cluster is it mandatory to back up all 7 nodes? Or is it possible (and supported) to safely exclude the 5 asynchronous nodes using the "Exclusions" section in the Protection Group?

My goal is to know if excluding them will impact the image level backup and the SQL transaction log backups or cause any issues with the backup chain

My main reason for wanting to exclude them is to save on Veeam instance licenses (VUL) and to avoid consuming unnecessary storage space on my backup repository for these read-only replicas

Thanks in advance for your help