How to Back Up an Azure VM with a Recovery Services Vault

Azure Backup can protect an Azure virtual machine by creating scheduled recovery points in a Recovery Services vault. This guide covers creating the vault, assigning a backup policy, protecting a VM, and running the first backup.

Before you begin

Confirm:

• The Azure subscription and resource group
• The region containing the virtual machine
• The required backup schedule
• The required daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly retention
• The appropriate storage-redundancy option
• Who will monitor failed backup jobs

The Recovery Services vault must be in the same region as the virtual machine it protects.

Create the Recovery Services vault

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
2. Search for Resiliency.
3. Open the Resiliency dashboard.
4. Under Vault, select + Vault.
5. Select Recovery Services vault and choose Continue.
6. Select the subscription and resource group.
7. Enter a unique vault name.
8. Select the same Azure region as the virtual machine.
9. Select Review + create.
10. Review the settings and select Create.

Review storage redundancy first

Open the new vault and review its storage-replication setting before protecting any workloads. Microsoft warns that the replication setting cannot be changed after backup has been configured in the vault. Choose local, zone, or geo redundancy according to the organization’s recovery and cost requirements.

Also consider enabling immutable-vault protection. Immutability can prevent recovery points from being deleted before their scheduled expiry.

Configure protection

1. Return to the Resiliency dashboard.
2. Select + Configure protection.
3. Set Resource managed by to Azure.
4. Select Azure virtual machines as the data-source type.
5. Select Azure Backup as the solution.
6. Choose the Recovery Services vault.
7. Select either a Standard or Enhanced backup policy.

A Standard policy supports one backup per day. An Enhanced policy supports multiple backups per day, including hourly schedules.

Create or select a backup policy

If the default policy does not meet the recovery requirements, create a custom policy and configure:

• Policy name
• Backup frequency and time
• Instant Restore snapshot retention
• Daily or weekly recovery-point retention
• Monthly retention
• Yearly retention

Match the policy to a documented recovery-point objective. Longer retention and more frequent backups can increase cost.

Select and protect the virtual machine

1. Under Virtual machines, select Add.
2. Choose the VM.
3. Allow Azure to validate it.
4. Select OK.
5. Review the configuration.
6. Select Enable backup.

A VM can be protected by only one vault, and only VMs in the same region as the vault are eligible.

Run the first backup immediately

1. Open Resiliency.
2. Select Protection inventory > Protected items.
3. Filter the data-source type to Virtual machines.
4. Open the protected VM’s details.
5. Select Backup now.
6. Choose the retention date for the recovery point.
7. Select OK.

Verify the backup

Monitor the backup job until both the snapshot and vault-transfer stages succeed. Then confirm that a usable recovery point appears for the VM.

A green configuration status alone is insufficient. A backup should be considered operational only after a successful recovery point exists and the restoration process has been tested.

Sources

• Quickstart: Back up a virtual machine in Azure
• Create and configure a Recovery Services vault
• Back up Azure VMs in a Recovery Services vault