Azure Backups Tutorial

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Backup is one of the essential component when you configure a server or any service. It does not really matter how important is its role in the environment.

Data Protection for any Physical, Virtual Machine or Service plays a vital role in any organization. In case of any data corruption, outages or in case of human errors (Deletion) where do System Administrator lands. One thing which strikes everyone’s mind is “DO YOU HAVE A LATEST BACKUP“.

Microsoft Azure introduced backup solution which used to backup, protect and restore your data in the Azure cloud. There are numerous advantages for backing up the data on Azure. Here are some key points which helps you think twice before you plan for on-premise back up solution:

No hassle for storage: Azure back’s up the data with “No-Cost” for using on-premise storage devices. It uses Pay-As-You-Use; this assures you about the cost you pay only for the usage you consume. It also allocates and manages the backup storage with its promising up of the storage unit.

Infinite Scaling: If you haven’t planned your storage calculation, don’t look back. Azure will take of it with its high availability. No administrative over head for managing the backup drive and its redundancy of the data.

Data Transfer: Azure doesn’t charge for any amount of inbound or outbound data you transfer (within Azure).

Storage Options: Considering high-availability is storage replication. Azure Backup offers two types of replication: locally redundant storage(LRS) and geo-redundant storage(GRS).

Below are two options which are described in brief:

Locally redundant storage (LRS) replicates your data three times (it creates three copies of your data) in a storage scale unit in a datacenter. All copies of the data exist within the same region. LRS is a low-cost option for protecting your data from local hardware failures.
Geo-redundant storage (GRS) is the default and recommended replication option. GRS replicates your data to a secondary region (hundreds of miles away from the primary location of the source data). GRS costs more than LRS, but GRS provides a higher level of durability for your data, even if there is a regional outage.

Data Encrytion: Majority of the commercial/public sector organzation will always ask for “How much Secure is my data in cloud“. Its definetely secured as data is always accessed by the passphrase or key.

Retention Time: There are recovery services vault(What is Recovery Services Vault) which can used for short-term retention and long-term retention. Microsoft Azure doesn’t have any limitation for the lenght of the data which can be kept in the recovery services vault, though it has a limitation of 9999 recovery points for protected instances (What is Protected instances).

Let’s have a look at how we can configure Azure Backup in a short span.

Prerequisite

Azure Subscription.
Azure Recovery Backup Vault.
Storage Accounts

Here are the steps to follow:

Create a Backup Vault Plan

Hover to Create a resource.
Select Monitoring + Management option.
Next select Back and Site Recovery (OMS)
On the new Blade provide the name.
Select Subcription details from the drop-down.
Next option is Resource group (Create new/Use Existing). No Hard and fast rule to use the same resource.
Last one is Select Location you have to place this Recovery Service Vault.
Click Create for deploying.

Creation of Backup Vault will take around ~5-7 minutes. Keep an eye on the notification bell for completion.

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2. Create Backup Policy Plan

Open the Backup Vault Blade and select the option +Backup

Backup

This will open a new blade which navigates to creating Backup Goals.
Select location where you want to Backup. In my case its Azure.
Next option asks you to what you want to Backup. Select Virtual Machine and click on Backup.
This navigates to link the Backup Policy. In my case i am creating a new policy for this demo.

Backup

Choose the name of the Policy.
Select the backup Frequency (Daily, Weekly)
Configure Retention range and the time you want to back up.
Click OK

Backup

3. Azure Backup for the VM.

Select the option “Item to Backup”
On the right Blade select the VM which needs to be backed up.
Enable the Backup as it will validates all the tests.
It should install the backup agent on the VM which is selected for Azure Backup.