Azure Files Backup Solutions for Data Protection

Azure Files provides a fully managed file share service in the cloud, allowing you to store and share files with your team across Azure, on-premises, and in other cloud environments.

With Azure Files, you can easily back up your data to protect against data loss due to hardware failure, user error, or other disasters.

To ensure data protection, Azure Files offers several backup solutions, including Azure Backup and Azure File Sync.

Azure Backup is a cost-effective solution that allows you to back up your Azure Files data to a separate storage location, such as a blob storage container.

Before you start backing up your Azure Files, make sure you have the right foundation in place. Ensure your file share is hosted in a supported storage account type, as listed in the support matrix.

To get started, you'll need to identify or create a Recovery Services vault in the same region and subscription as your storage account. This is crucial for a smooth backup process.

Check your storage account's firewall settings to ensure that the exception "Allow Azure services on the trusted services list to access this storage account" is granted. If you're unsure, refer to the link provided for steps on how to grant an exception.

By following these prerequisites, you'll be well on your way to setting up a reliable Azure Files backup solution.

To configure the backup job for Azure Files, make sure your storage account belongs to one of the supported storage account types, which you can check in the Support Matrix.

Before setting up a backup job, ensure the Azure file share isn't already protected in the same Recovery Services vault or if it hasn't been deleted recently.

You can protect file shares in a storage account with different backup policies if they're in the same Recovery Services vault.

Before configuring the backup job for Azure Files, ensure your storage account belongs to a supported type, which you can check in the Support Matrix.

You can protect file shares in a storage account in the same Recovery Services vault with different backup policies.

First, verify if the Azure file share is already protected in the same Recovery Services vault.

Moving a backed-up share to a different subscription can be a bit tricky, but it's doable. You'll need to move the file share to the new subscription, stop protection with delete data operation for the old vault, unregister the storage account, and then reconfigure backup with a new vault.

Moving a file share to a different subscription treats it as a new file share, so you'll have to reconfigure backup for it. This means you'll need to set up a new vault in the new subscription.

You'll also need to delete the snapshots that were taken with the old vault manually, as they'll no longer be managed by Azure Backup. This is because Azure Backup considers the file share as a new one after the move.

Here are the steps to move a backed-up file share to a different subscription:

Note that after reconfiguring backup, the snapshots that were taken with the old vault will no longer be managed by Azure Backup. You'll need to delete them manually according to your requirements.

You can restore data from backups even if you stopped protection on an Azure file share, as long as you chose to retain backup data. This means you won't lose your data if you need to stop protection for any reason.

If you stop protection on an Azure file share, you can still restore from all existing restore points. This is a great safety net to have in place, just in case.

You can also protect File Shares connected to a Sync Group in Azure File Sync. This feature is enabled, so you don't have to worry about compatibility issues.

To protect file shares connected to a Sync Group, simply select the Storage Account to discover file shares within it, and then choose to protect the file shares with a vault. Just be sure to unregister the chosen Storage Account from the original vault if you want to use a different vault.

If you're experiencing issues with Azure Files backup, the first step is to check the storage account status. Make sure it's not experiencing any outages or issues that could affect your backup.

The Azure Files backup process relies on the Azure Storage service, which has a 99.9% uptime guarantee. This means that your backups should be available most of the time, but it's still possible to encounter occasional outages.

To troubleshoot connectivity issues, verify that your Azure Files share is correctly configured and that the firewall rules allow access to the storage account.

Canceling an ongoing restore job can be a bit of a delicate situation, but it's good to know what happens if you need to cancel a restore job in progress. If an ongoing restore job is canceled, the restore process stops.

All files restored before the cancellation will stay in the configured destination, either the original or alternate location. This means you won't have to worry about any rollbacks or lost data.

You can't change the vault to configure backup for a file share if the storage account is already registered with a vault.

If the storage account is already registered with a vault, you won't be given an option to change it because all file shares in a storage account can be protected only by the same vault.

To change the vault, you'll need to stop protection for all file shares in the storage account from the connected vault.

You'll then need to unregister the storage account from the current vault before you can choose a different vault for protection.

If you're noticing that the data transferred in MB is 0 for your backup jobs, it's likely because the current backup solution for Azure Files doesn't transfer any data to the vault.

In this case, snapshots are retained in the same storage account as the backed-up file share, so the data transferred in MB is indeed 0.

The Storage Replication setting of the vault isn't relevant for Azure Files backup, as the current solution is snapshot-based and doesn't involve data transfer to the vault.

Snapshots are stored in the same storage account as the backed-up file share, and therefore replicated as per the replication setting of the storage account.

Here are some key takeaways to keep in mind:

You can protect File Shares connected to a Sync Group in Azure File Sync.

Protection of Azure File Shares connected to Sync Groups is enabled, so you can rest assured that your files are safe.

To back up, selecting a Storage Account to discover file shares within it registers the Storage Account with the vault from which this is done.

If you choose to protect the file shares with a different vault, you need to unregister the chosen Storage Account from this vault first.

You can configure different backup policies for file shares in a storage account, allowing you to protect them in the same Recovery Services vault with various retention settings.

The maximum retention you can configure for backups is determined by the support matrix, and Azure Backup performs a real-time calculation of the number of snapshots when you enter retention values while configuring the backup policy.

If you modify a Daily backup policy to a GFS policy, all future recovery points created as part of the scheduled backup will be tagged according to the new policy, but existing recovery points will still be considered as daily recovery points.

Here's a summary of how retention works when modifying a backup policy:

Existing recovery points will be adjusted according to the daily retention value of the new policy, but won't be tagged as weekly/monthly/yearly based on the new policy.

Maximum Retention Configuration can be a bit tricky, but don't worry, it's not as complicated as it seems.

The maximum retention you can configure for backups is determined by Azure Backup, which does a real-time calculation of the number of snapshots when you enter the retention values while configuring the backup policy.

This calculation is important because it will show a warning if the number of snapshots exceeds 200, which is the maximum number of snapshots supported by Azure Files for any file share at any point in time.

If you're modifying a Daily backup policy to a GFS policy, all future recovery points created as part of the scheduled backup will be tagged according to the new policy, but existing recovery points will still be considered as daily recovery points.

Here's an example of how this works:

In this example, the expiration date of existing recovery points will be adjusted according to the daily retention value of the new policy, which is 50 days. Any recovery point older than 50 days will be marked for deletion.

The policy changes will affect only the recovery points created as part of the scheduled backup job run. For on-demand backups, retention is determined by the Retain Till value specified at the time of taking the backup.

You can configure different backup policies for file shares in a storage account, which is useful if you have different data retention requirements for different file shares.

Remember, the maximum retention configuration is determined by Azure Backup's real-time calculation, so make sure to check the warning if you're approaching the 200 snapshot limit.

The duration attribute in a backup policy is crucial in determining the backup window. It signifies the maximum time during which backups can be triggered.

If you set a start time and a duration, the backups will be scheduled between those two times based on the schedule attribute. For example, if the start time is 9 AM and the duration is 12 hours, the backups will be scheduled between 9 AM and 9 PM.

The backup window is calculated by adding the duration to the start time. If you set a schedule that's greater than the duration, the backup job can only trigger at the start time. To fix this, you should adjust your schedule or duration, or select Daily frequency instead of Hourly.

The duration attribute also affects the backup window's start and end times. If the start and end times fall on two different days, you should adjust the start time or duration to ensure they are on the same day. For instance, if the schedule is every 4 hours and the start time is 12 PM with a duration of 15 hours, the backup window will be 12 PM - 3 AM, which falls on two different days.

When configuring policies for Azure Files backup, you need to consider the duration attribute, which determines the backup window. This attribute is crucial in ensuring that backups are only triggered during your working hours when there are frequent update operations on file share contents.

The duration attribute specifies the end time of the backup window, which is calculated by adding the duration to the start time. For example, if the start time is 9 AM and the duration is 12 hours, the backup window will be between 9 AM and 9 PM.

The schedule attribute determines the time difference between consecutive backups. If the schedule is greater than the duration, the backup window will be limited to the duration, and you may need to adjust the schedule or duration to ensure that backups are triggered within the backup window.

You can also configure different backup policies for file shares in a storage account, which is useful if you have multiple file shares with different backup requirements.

Here are some examples of how to configure the backup job for Azure Files:

Note that the backup window will be adjusted if it falls on two different days. In this case, you may need to adjust the start time or duration to ensure that the backup window is on the same day.

It's also worth noting that you can protect file shares in a storage account with different backup policies, which is useful for managing multiple file shares with different backup requirements.