Azure Backup

In this chapter, you will learn about Azure Backup and why it is so important. Then, we will move forward to cover the pre-configurations for the backup process and how to do a backup on Azure. After that, you will learn how to store files on Azure Virtual Machines. Finally, you will learn how to automate the manual tasks that are implemented throughout the chapter.

The following topics will be covered:

• An introduction to Azure Backup
• Why Azure Backup?
• The process of backing up data
• Further information
• Automating tasks

An introduction to Azure Backup

Backup has always been the X factor that saves an environment from being completely damaged or lost.

Backup is one of the oldest terminologies to be heard, and it has gone through many evolutions. Nowadays, there are many vendors offering backup solutions.

In 2014, Microsoft announced that it will support backup as a service on its cloud (Azure), as a part of Azure Recovery Services, and since then, Azure Backup has undergone many enhancements.

Simply put, backing up your data to the cloud is currently one of the safest methods because of the ransomware attacks that have affected many organizations around the world.

Azure Backup has two kinds of vaults:

• Backup vaults: The older of the two, they have been widely used in the classic portal
• Recovery Services vault: The evolution of Backup vaults, they are designed to support Resource Manager deployments...

Why Azure Backup?

Azure Backup delivers many key benefits to many environments that use it as a backup solution. Here are some of them:

• Highly available and scalable solution: When using Azure Backup, you do not have to care about the underlying infrastructure on which the backup will be stored, or the maintenance of that infrastructure. Also, whenever you need to back up and keep your data on Azure, you do not have to care about the size of the backed up data, because no matter what the size is, Azure will handle it.
• Self-service: Azure Backup will allocate your backed up data automatically without the need to assign it to a specific storage device.
• High level of application consistency: Azure Backup supports backing up Hyper-V, VMware VMs, SQL Servers, file servers, and so on. Whenever you restore any of these applications, you will not have to do any troubleshooting or fixing...

The process of backing up data

Before backing up your data, you have to do some configuration, such as building a Recovery Services vault, which is the place where the backed up data will be stored. Once you have done that, you can start backing the data up.

Building a Recovery Services vault

As mentioned earlier, you have to build a Recovery Services vault to store your backed up data in. To do so, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to Recovery Services vaults, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 6.1: Searching for Recovery Services vaults

2. Once the Recovery Services vaults blade is opened, you can create a new Recovery Services vault by clicking on Add, or Create Recovery Services vaults, as shown in the following...

Further information

For further information about Azure Backup, you can check out the following links:

• Configure an offline backup: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-backup-import-export
• Prepare Azure Backup Server: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-microsoft-azure-backup
• Add storage to Azure Backup Server: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-mabs-add-storage
• Backup VMware Server using Azure Backup: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-backup-server-vmware
• Backup Exchange Server using Azure Backup: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-exchange-mabs
• Backup SharePoint Server using Azure Backup: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure-backup-sharepoint-mabs
• Backup SQL Server using Azure Backup: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-azure...

Automating tasks

So, we have reached the final destination of the chapter, where we automate all of the manual tasks that we have covered.

Building a Recovery Services vault using Azure PowerShell

To work with Azure Recovery Services, you have to register the Recovery Services provider by running the following cmdlet:

Register-AzureRmResourceProvider -ProviderNamespace "Microsoft.RecoveryServices"

Then, you can create the Recovery Services vault by running the following cmdlet:

New-AzureRmRecoveryServicesVault -Name PSRS -ResourceGroupName "PacktPub" -Location "West Europe"

Building a Recovery Services...

Summary

We are done with the first part of Azure Recovery Services. Throughout the chapter, we have covered the importance of Azure Backup, how to use it and even how to use it to back up your data.

The next chapter will cover the other part of Azure Recovery Services. Azure Site Recovery is one of the most important services that Azure provides for the business continuity, and it will be covered in detail in the coming chapter.