Acronis Disaster Recovery Service: Primary RAM and Burstable RAM
This article describes differences between Primary and Burstable RAM in the Entitlements section.
All clients automatically get 2GB RAM as part of the VPN/VLAN/AD Template with 2GB RAM, vCPU and Recovery Server SKU for the Cloud Domain Controller. In addition, a client could purchase additional gigabytes of Burstable RAM which can be increased by 3 times in case of a disaster. For example, if you purchase 50GB burstable RAM, it gives you 150GB RAM (50 x 3) for test and a declared disaster. That additional 100GB RAM can be used only during your test week or in case of a declared disaster.
Primary RAM and Burstable RAM are different entities:
- Burstable RAM only applies to Primary Servers in Acronis cloud.
- Burstable RAM can burst up to 3 times the Base RAM set as Burstable for the server.
- A server needs to be powered off for the 3X Burst capacity to come in effect. No Dynamic allocation of RAM is possible without shutting down the Primary Server, where it needs to burst.
- Burstable RAM can be used ONLY in a DR scenario or in DR Zone schedule.
- Burstable RAM as shown in entitlements does not include the Base Primary RAM required to spin up the server. It requires purchasing/entitling the Primary RAM that must match the total Base Burstable RAM allocation of all servers.
- For example, if you have 1 primary Server that needs to burst to 48GB of RAM in case of DR/Testing, each of the servers needs to be configured with 16GB of Burstable RAM. To do that, open your Primary server in the recovery console, click on the Pencil icon and change RAM type to Burstable.
- For Cloud Active Directory 2GB of Primary RAM is always allocated.
- For example, you have servers "A" and "B"; each of them needs 8GB RAM to work and they also need a possibility to increase the amount of RAM up to 24GB each in case of a disaster. Entitlements should be:
- Primary RAM (GB) 2GB (AD Server) + 8GB for Server “A” + 8 GB for Server “B” for a Total of 18GB of Primary RAM.
- Burstable RAM (GB) – 8GB of burstable base RAM for Server “A” + 8GB of burstable base RAM for Server “B” for a Total of 16GB Burstable Base RAM. These Servers can now burst to 24GB each in case of DR/DR Testing Zone.
- The Entitlements should be Primary RAM (GB) – 18GB and Burstable RAM (GB) – 16GB in this example.
- For example, if you have 1 primary Server that needs to burst to 48GB of RAM in case of DR/Testing, each of the servers needs to be configured with 16GB of Burstable RAM. To do that, open your Primary server in the recovery console, click on the Pencil icon and change RAM type to Burstable.
- For Burstable RAM in DR testing: after the Burst of RAM, if you do not reduce the burstable RAM to base burstable RAM, console logic will power off and reduce the RAM to the base burstable RAM assigned to the Server.
For example, if Server “A” has 4GB RAM set as Burstable, it bursts upto 12GB and remains until the DR zone is in effect. After the DR zone is moved to the next zone and the primary server is not reduced to the base burstable RAM of 4GB, the console Logic will shut it down and set the RAM to 4 GB as originally set.
To summarize: every Customer who needs Burstable RAM also needs Primary RAM purchased/entitled.