Data Protection with Azure Backup

Introduction

Azure Backup is a one-click backup service offered by Azure to store data with a scalable solution. It provides a centralized management user interface, making it easy to define backup and retention policies & offers to protect a wide range of enterprise workloads, including Virtual Machines, SQL & SAP databases, and Azure file shares.

What can we Backup?

• On-premises – We can back up files, folders, and system state using Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent. We can also use DPM or Azure Backup Server (MABS) agent to protect on-premises VMs (Hyper-V and VMware) & other on-premises workloads.
• Azure VMs – Using the MARS agent, we can back up entire Windows/Linux VMs or backup files, folders, and system state.
• Azure Managed Disks
• Azure Files shares – Azure File share backup to a storage account
• SQL Server in Azure VMs – Back up SQL Server databases running on VMs
• SAP HANA databases in Azure VMs – Backup SAP HANA databases running on VMs
• Azure Database for PostgreSQL servers – Back up Azure PostgreSQL databases and retain the backups for up to 10 years
• Azure Blobs

Key Features

1) Centralized management

Using the Backup Center user interface, we can configure multiple operations like

• Monitor
• Operate
• Govern
• Optimize data

2) Application consistency

In Windows servers using Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and Linux with pre and post-processing scripts, we can backup and restore data from virtual machines with application consistency.

3) Multiple-workload support

Azure Backup service provides workload support for the below Azure services.

• Back up Azure Virtual Machines
• On-premises servers
• SQL Server and SAP HANA on Azure Virtual Machines
• Azure Files,
• Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

4) Durable storage options

Azure offers a durable storage option for backups using the strategy below.

• Locally redundant storage (LRS)
• Geo-redundant storage (GRS)
• Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)

For more information about LRS, GRS & ZRS, please refer to the link.

Step to take a Backup

In the below scenario, we will back up the Azure virtual machine using the ‘Backup’ service.

Step 1:  Navigate to ‘Backup’ under Operations

Step 2: In this step, we will create a backup vault, backup policy, and retention policy in the same resource group.

Backup scenario: We are creating a custom policy that will take the backup of the VM at 10:00 PM UTC Daily for 30 days with a retention policy for 7 days

Review the configuration and click ‘Enable backup’ to start the VM backup.

Step 3: Navigate to the newly created backup vault and check Backup-items to see the VM listed to be backed up.

Step 4: Since we schedule the policy for 10 PM UTC, it will trigger accordingly. For now, we will take a backup of the VM by clicking on ‘Backup Now’

We will retain this backup for one month. Click ‘Ok’

Step 5: Navigate to ‘Backup Jobs’ to see the backup status.

Conclusion

With the help of backup reports, we can audit and analyze backup data using historical data and patterns. Developers and DevOps engineers can use APIs, PowerShell, and Azure CLI to automate backup policy and security configurations.

Pricing

To learn about Azure Backup pricing, visit the Azure Backup pricing page

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