Hello Community,

As part of my ongoing work with Veeam Backup for Google Cloud (VBGC), I’ve come across an important yet sometimes overlooked component in its architecture, the Worker Profile.

Worker profiles play a critical role in the performance and reliability of your backup and archiving operations in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

In this article, I’ll explain what worker profiles are, how they are used, why GCP quota limits matter, and how to plan your configurations to avoid common pitfalls.

What Are Worker Profiles?

In Veeam Backup for Google Cloud, worker instances are temporary compute instances deployed automatically by the VBGC appliance to handle backup, restore, and archiving tasks.

These instances are configured via Worker Profiles, which you manage from the Web UI under:

Configuration ➝ Workers ➝ Profiles

Each profile defines:

• The machine type
• The region
• The use case (e.g., regular backup vs. archiving)

Default Worker Profiles and Their Purpose:

- Primary profile (e2-highcpu-8) is used while sufficient disk quota is available.

- Secondary profile (e2-highcpu-2) is used only if you are running out of disk quota.

- Archiving profile (e2-standard-4) is used for transferring data to archive repositories.

Quota Limits: Why They Matter?

Each worker profile consumes Google Cloud resources, which are bound by project-level quota limits. These include:

• CPU quota
• Disk quota
• Number of VM instances per region

If these limits are exceeded, worker deployment may fail, leading to incomplete or failed backup jobs.

Common Scenario:

If you upgrade your primary worker profile (e.g., from e2-highcpu-8 to n2-highmem-16), your CPU and disk quotas must be increased accordingly in GCP. Otherwise, jobs that rely on that profile may fail silently or stall during initialization.

Where Are Worker Profiles Created?

Worker profiles are created under the same GCP project where your Veeam Backup Appliance is deployed. Therefore, all associated quotas (CPU, disk, network) must be monitored and managed at the project level.

📌 Important Note: Even if your GCP account has high quotas globally, each project and region has its own limits that can affect deployment.

✅ Best Practices for Using Worker Profiles

1: Monitor Quotas Regularly:

• Use GCP Console ➝ IAM & Admin ➝ Quotas to check your current usage.
• Set alerts when usage reaches 80% to avoid disruptions.

2: Customize Worker Profiles:

• If you have specific performance or cost requirements, create custom profiles with appropriate VM types and regions.
• Balance between cost (e.g., e2 types) and performance (e.g., n2 or c2 series).

3: Keep Internet Access Available:

• Some worker deployments (especially during updates) require temporary internet access don’t block egress unless explicitly needed.

4: Fallback Profiles Are Critical:

• Don’t delete or ignore the secondary profile it’s your safety net when quotas hit the ceiling.

5: Audit Worker Profile Assignments:

• The correct worker profile is assigned to each job type backups, archiving, or restores to optimize speed and cost.

Final Thoughts:

Worker profiles are more than just configuration options they directly impact how efficiently and reliably your Veeam backups operate in GCP.

Misconfiguration or unoptimized profiles, especially under tight quota limits, can quickly lead to bottlenecks or failures.

Understanding how to create, manage, and align your worker profiles with GCP quotas ensures you get the best performance from your cloud-native backups.