Backup VMware VMs to Azure with Azure Backup

Backup VMware VMs to Azure with Azure Backup is a game-changer for businesses and individuals alike. This feature allows you to protect your virtual machines from data loss and ensure business continuity.

Azure Backup supports VMware VMs running on vSphere 6.5 and later versions. This means you can easily integrate Azure Backup into your existing VMware environment.

To get started, you'll need to install the Azure Backup agent on your VMware VMs. This agent communicates with Azure Backup to send backups to the cloud.

With Azure Backup, you can schedule backups to run at specific times or intervals, ensuring your data is always up-to-date.

To get started with Azure Backup for VMware, you'll need to have an Azure VMware Solution environment set up.

First, familiarize yourself with the Azure portal and the Azure VMware Solution dashboard.

You can then create a recovery services vault, which is a central location for managing backups.

Next, you'll need to install the Azure Backup Server on a VM in your Azure VMware Solution environment.

Now that you know the basics, you can learn more about backing up your Azure VMware Solution VMs with Azure Backup Server.

To configure Azure Backup for your VMware environment, you'll need to follow these steps.

First, you'll want to configure a protection group in the Azure Backup Server console. This involves selecting Protection > New, then following the Create New Protection Group wizard to select the VMs you want to back up and specify data protection settings.

To add VMs to the protection group, simply select the VMs (or VM folders) you want to back up on the Select Group Members page. Note that when you select a folder or VM, all folders inside that folder are also selected for backup.

You can also enable online protection for your VMs by setting the short-term protection to Disk on the Select Data Protection Method page.

Once you've selected your VMs and specified your protection settings, you can review the disk space provided for the VM backups on the Review Disk Storage Allocation page.

To automate the consistency checks, select how and when to automate the consistency checks on the Consistency check options page.

Here's a summary of the protection group configuration steps:

Next, you'll need to establish a connection between Azure Backup Server and vCenter. This requires downloading trusted root CA certificates of vCenter and installing them on the Azure Backup Server.

To enable TLS 1.2 on Azure Backup Server, you'll need to get the registry settings from Microsoft and add the settings to the registry.

Finally, add the vCenter to Azure Backup Server using the management console of Azure Backup Server with its credentials.

Azure Backup provides a solution to back up Azure workloads and data and recover it from the Microsoft Azure cloud. You can back up Windows or Linux VMs, files, folders, and system state using the backup extension or Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent.

Azure Backup allows you to automate the backup process and schedule backups to occur at regular intervals. This can be done by selecting the VM or folder you want to recover, selecting a date when a recovery point was taken, and then selecting the recovery point from the list.

You can recover VMs from your backup vault using File Recovery, which uses a script to mount the recovery point as a local drive. This drive remains mounted for 12 hours, allowing you to copy files from the recovery point and restore them to the VM.

Azure Backup Server is an agentless backup solution that allows you to backup on-premise VMware VM to Azure. It integrates with vCenter to automatically add new VMs to the backup server. However, it only provides basic backup and recovery features for VMware, and you may need to use a professional VM backup solution for production environments.

Azure Backup is a cloud-based solution that integrates with VMware to provide backup and disaster recovery capabilities. It's an agentless solution, meaning you don't need to install software on the VMs.

Azure Backup Server is designed to work with vCenter, automatically adding new VMs to the backup system. This makes it easy to manage your VMware environment.

One of the key benefits of Azure Backup is its ability to provide comprehensive protection for your production VMs. It's a great option for companies that want to integrate their workloads with Azure.

You can use Azure Backup to backup your VMware VMs to cloud storage, including Azure itself. This provides a convenient and secure way to store your backups.

You can recover VM files from your Backup Vault if you accidentally delete or make changes to a file.

Azure Backup services provide a solution to back up Azure workloads and data and recover it from the Microsoft Azure cloud.

If you accidentally delete or make changes to a file, you can use File Recovery to recover the file from your backup vault. File Recovery uses a script that runs on the VM, to mount the recovery point as a local drive.

These drives remain mounted for 12 hours so that you can copy files from the recovery point and restore them to the VM.

In the Azure portal, navigate to the VM blade, in the Operations section, click Backup. The Backup blade opens.

Select File Recovery from the menu at the top of the blade. The File Recovery blade opens.

On your local computer, open File Explorer and navigate to your Downloads folder, and copy the downloaded .exe file. The filename is prefixed by your VM name.

Paste the .exe file to the Desktop of your VM using the RDP connection.

Double-click on the .exe to mount the recovery point as a file share that you can access.

Type q to close the command prompt when the file share is created.

On your VM, open File Explorer and navigate to the drive letter that was used for the file share.

Navigate to \inetpub\wwwroot and copy iisstart.png from the file share and paste it into \inetpub\wwwroot.

On your local computer, open the browser tab where you are connected to the IP address of the VM showing the IIS default page. Press CTRL + F5 to refresh the browser page.

You should now see that the image has been restored.

Site Recovery is a crucial aspect of backup and recovery, ensuring your applications and workloads are protected in case of a site outage. Azure Site Recovery replicates your workloads to a secondary site or Azure, enabling you to fail over quickly in case of a disaster.

You can set up Azure Site Recovery to automate the replication process, occurring at regular intervals, just like Azure Backup. This service provides Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) by replicating an Azure VM(s) to a different Azure region.

To use Azure Site Recovery, you'll need to select the VM you want to protect, which can be done by selecting it from the list in the Azure portal. From there, you can configure and manage the disaster recovery options, including replication, failover, and failback.

Azure Site Recovery supports multiple platforms, including Azure VMs, Hyper-V, VMware, and Windows and Linux physical servers. This means you can use it to protect a wide range of workloads and applications.

In addition to protecting your applications and workloads, Azure Site Recovery also allows you to fail back to your original site once the disaster has passed. This process is known as failback, and it's an essential part of the disaster recovery process.

To get started with Azure Site Recovery, you can follow the steps outlined in the Azure portal, which include selecting the VM you want to protect, configuring the disaster recovery options, and managing the replication process.

Azure Backup for VMware offers advanced features that ensure data protection and integrity. Automated backups eliminate the need for manual intervention, reducing the risk of data loss.

Application-consistent backups are critical for applications that rely on databases or transaction logs, ensuring that data is captured in a consistent state.

Incremental backups capture only changes made to the data since the last backup, reducing backup time and storage costs. Long-term retention allows organizations to retain backups for extended periods, such as months or years.

To enable TLS 1.2 on Azure Backup Server, you'll need to make some registry changes. This is a crucial step to ensure secure communication between Azure Backup Server and vCenter Server.

First, copy the following registry settings and save them as a file named TLS.REG without the .txt extension. This will give you a file with the exact settings you need to import into the registry.

Here are the registry settings you'll need to copy:

```

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v2.0.50727]

"SystemDefaultTlsVersions"=dword:00000001

"SchUseStrongCrypto"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v4.0.30319]

"SystemDefaultTlsVersions"=dword:00000001

"SchUseStrongCrypto"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v2.0.50727]

"SystemDefaultTlsVersions"=dword:00000001

"SchUseStrongCrypto"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v4.0.30319]

"SystemDefaultTlsVersions"=dword:00000001

"SchUseStrongCrypto"=dword:00000001

```

Once you have the TLS.REG file, right-click on it and select Merge or Open to add the settings to the registry. This will ensure that Azure Backup Server is using TLS 1.2 for secure communication.

Unitrends Backup for Microsoft Azure offers single-pane-of-glass management, making it easy to streamline day-to-day operations.

This solution is purpose-built for Azure-native workloads and provides hourly replication to the Unitrends Cloud, where data is stored immutably in a private and secure Unitrends data center.

With Unitrends Backup for Microsoft Azure, you can perform disaster recovery outside of Azure, ensuring continuity in a cloud-level continuity event.

Replication to Unitrends Cloud minimizes single-cloud risk by providing rapid recovery and instant virtualization in the event of downtime, cyberattack, or other cloud outages.

Unitrends Backup for Microsoft Azure offers simple flat-fee pricing, removing the unpredictability of cloud billing with a forecastable model.

This turnkey solution streamlines backup verification, management, and recovery, making it easier to maintain data protection.

Superior data protection at a predictable cost is what Unitrends Backup for Microsoft Azure offers, and it's worth exploring further.

Azure Backup is a game-changer for reducing the risk of data loss. By automating the backup process, organizations can schedule backups at regular intervals, eliminating the need for manual intervention and reducing the risk of data loss due to hardware failure, human error, or other unexpected disasters.

Azure Backup provides application-consistent backups, ensuring that data is captured in a consistent state, which is critical for applications that rely on databases or transaction logs. This means that even in the event of a disaster, your data will be recoverable.

One of the most significant benefits of Azure Backup is its flexibility. It supports various backup options, including file and folder backup, virtual machine backup, SQL server backup, and application-specific backups. This flexibility allows organizations to protect their critical data in the way that best suits their needs.

Azure Backup also supports incremental backups, which means that only changes made to the data since the last backup are captured. This feature reduces backup time and storage costs, making it a cost-effective solution for organizations of all sizes.

The centralized management console provided by Azure Backup makes it easy to monitor and manage backups from a single location. This console provides a single view of all backups, making it easy to identify any issues or discrepancies.

Azure Backup encrypts all data in transit and at rest, ensuring that backups are secure and protected against unauthorized access. It also supports role-based access control, allowing organizations to control who has access to backup data.

Restoring a virtual machine (VM) with Azure Backup Server is a straightforward process. You can search or browse for recoverable data in the Azure Backup Server Administrator Console.

There are three recovery options for VMware VM backups: Original Location Recovery (OLR), Alternate Location Recovery (ALR), and Individual File Location Recovery (ILR). OLR restores a protected VM to its original location, but only if no disks were added or deleted since the backup occurred.

To use ALR, you need to provide the location of an ESXi host, resource pool, folder, and the storage datastore and path. This option is useful when the original VM is missing or you don't want to disturb the original VM.

ILR allows you to recover individual files or folders inside a VM, but this capability is only available for Windows Server VMs and disk recovery points.

To restore a VM, follow these steps:

1. Select the Recovery view in the Azure Backup Server Administrator Console.

2. Browse or filter to find the VM you want to recover.

3. Select a date when a recovery point was taken.

4. Before recovering from an online recovery point, ensure the staging location contains enough free space to house the full uncompressed size of the VM.

5. Select Recover to open the Recovery Wizard.

6. Review your settings and select Recover to start the recovery process.

Here are the three recovery options for VMware VM backups:

Azure Backup provides a solution to back up Azure workloads and data and recover it from the Microsoft Azure cloud.

You can back up various types of data, including VMs, files, folders, system state, on-premises workloads, or even an SQL database.

Azure Backup allows you to automate the backup process and schedule backups to occur at regular intervals.

The service is native to Azure and enables self-service backups and restores at scale, making it a reliable solution for protecting your organization's data.

Microsoft Azure provides automation capabilities for backup and recovery operations, facilitating backup and recovery with native Azure solutions like Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery.

Azure Backup is a native service to the Microsoft Azure Cloud that allows you to protect your workloads in various environments, including multicloud and hybrid cloud.

It's a self-service backup solution that enables you to quickly recover lost data and continue business operations without interruption, ensuring your organization's data is constantly protected.

Azure Backup uses an agentless backup method to add VMware VMs managed by vCenter to its management list, creating a snapshot of the VM and then backing up this snapshot.

This means you can easily add your VMware VMs to the management list and start backing them up without needing to install any additional agents.

Microsoft Azure provides automation capabilities for backup and recovery operations, allowing you to automate your backup and recovery tasks.

This automation enables you to streamline your backup and recovery processes, saving you time and effort in the long run.

Backing up your data is essential, especially when using a cloud platform like Microsoft Azure. According to the shared responsibility model (SRM), you, as a customer, are responsible for protecting the data and other assets you store in Azure.

You own certain responsibilities as a customer, including data, endpoints, accounts, and access management. This means you're accountable for safeguarding your data against various threats.

Human error, such as accidental deletion of files or physical damage, can lead to data loss. Programmatic/configuration errors can also result in lost or corrupted files, which can be irrecoverable without a backup.

Malicious insiders can pose a significant risk to your organization's sensitive information, while external hackers constantly innovate their techniques to bypass security systems. Viruses and malware can also cause serious trouble, spreading quickly and taking down entire IT systems.

To protect against these threats, it's crucial to have a clean backup of your data. This can help you quickly recover from an attack when hackers strike.