1372 - How to manage your Azure VM backups

 

Introduction

Backup and recovery of Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) form part of our cloud offering. To use the Azure VM Pro service, you need to be both a Redstor collection administrator, and an administrator of the Azure subscription for the VMs you want to back up.

Use the guide below to manage your backups.

How to add a virtual machine

How to remove a virtual machine from you backups

How to configure the backup schedule

How to recover a virtual machine

Common errors

 

How to add a virtual machine

1. In the RedApp, locate the relevant customer name in the sidebar and click on it.

2. Go to Azure in the sidebar. This will take you to your Azure Overview page.

3. Click on Virtual Machines in the sidebar.

4. Go to Add at the top right and click Add virtual machines.

5. You will now need to log into Azure and allow Redstor access to your resource groups. Click Next to proceed.

6. Authenticate with your admin credentials and accept the requested permissions.

7. You will be shown a list of VMs that your Azure user has access to, and that are located in a subscription that is not yet protected by Redstor. Select one or more VMs from the list (all are selected by default) and click Add. This will queue the deployment of a new virtual backup appliance into the relevant subscription.

You can also enable Redstor Protect using the toggle switch at the bottom. This means that for the selected VMs, all backups stored in Azure will also be copied to the Redstor Storage Platform for off-site storage at an additional cost.

Note:

• The appliance will be deployed into the region of the first VM listed.
• Once an appliance has been deployed into a subscription, you will not need to repeat this process when adding new VMs to be backed up. 
• Redstor Protect can be enabled or disabled at any time from the Backup selection card on the VM's home page.
  
  
  

You can monitor the progress of the deployment on the All Virtual Machines page or under Notifications > Tasks.

You will receive a message under Notifications > Recent when the deployment completes

Once the appliance has been deployed, you can back up the VMs in that subscription. For an individual VM, click on the menu icon to its right and then on Backup.

You can also select multiple VMs and click Backup at the bottom of the page.

You can monitor the progress of the backup on the All Virtual Machines page or under Notifications > Tasks.

You can also view an audit trail of all activities and which users performed them by clicking on the icon at the top right.

The status of all your backups, along with additional analytics, is shown on the Virtual Machines Overview page, which can be accessed from the sidebar.

Any potential malware in your backups will be flagged on the Suspicious files card. Click View to go to a list of all suspicious files, from where you can delete them or mark them as safe.

Suspicious files will also be indicated in the list of backups for a specific VM. From here, you can also delete them or mark them as safe.

 

How to remove a virtual machine from your backups

1. Go to the All Virtual Machines view or to the relevant resource group in the sidebar.

2. Select the relevant VM and click the menu icon to its right, then Remove. For multiple VMs, make your selection and click Remove at the bottom of the page.

 

 

How to configure the backup schedule

1. On the home page for the relevant resource group, click on Backup Schedule > Edit.

2. You can retain the default of a single daily backup, or you can set your backups to only run on specific days (custom). In either case, use the drop-down menu to set the backup time. Set your preferences and click on the check mark.

 

 

How to recover a virtual machine

You can recover an entire VM back to its current location or a new location, recover the VM with InstantData, or recover only its files by downloading them.

 

How to recover the entire virtual machine

On the home page for the relevant VM, locate the backup you wish to recover. Expand its menu, then proceed according to your preferred option.

• Recover to > Current VM reverts the backed-up VM into its original location.
• Recover to > New VM restores the data into a new, functionally identical VM in a resource group of your choosing.
• Recover with InstantData generates a shareable link that can be used to recover the VM's data. 
  • Please note that InstantData for Azure VMs is currently only supported on Windows.

 

If you selected New VM:

1. Specify a name for the new VM, and select a resource group for it to be located in. Click Next to proceed.

2. Confirm the selected settings and click Recover.

You can monitor the progress of your recovery on the resource group's home page or under Notifications > Tasks.

You will receive a message under Notifications > Recent when the recovery completes. 

 

If you selected Recover with InstantData:

1. Download the InstantData agent onto the VM where you want to recover the data.

2. Run the application.

3. Select between permanent and temporary recovery. 

4. Drag and drop files from the application into your File Explorer to recover them.

• Please note that InstantData for Azure VMs is currently only supported on Windows.

 

How to recover files from a virtual machine

1. Go to the home page for the relevant VM and open the backup you wish to recover files from. You will be shown a list of mount points (snapshots) that have been taken of this VM, sorted by date. Note that it may take a few seconds for the list to load for the first time. You can then drill down and select one or more files you wish to recover. Once you have made your selection, click Download.

The file/s will be downloaded to a zip file.

You can monitor the progress of your download on the resource group's home page or under Notifications > Tasks.

You will receive a message under Notifications > Recent when the download is ready. 

 

Common errors

Error description		Error message example		Suggested action
Adding a VM or storage account resource fails with error "Could not deploy appliance"		Could not deploy appliance Code: Authorization_RequestDenied Message: insufficient privileges to complete the operation.		Check the Azure subscription permissions on the Azure user account. In your Azure subscription, your account must have Microsoft.Authorization/*/Write access to assign a role to an Active Directory app. This action is granted through either the Owner role or the User Access Administrator role.
Adding a VM fails with error "group capacity limit reached"		400 BadRequest – {“Limit”[Cannot create Backup Account ‘x’: group capacity limit reached”]}		Request a capacity increase from your service provider.
Adding a VM fails with error "does not have authorization to perform action"		Exception while executing function: AddMachines The client 'x' with object id 'y' does not have authorization to perform action 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/read' over scope '/subscriptions/z' or the scope is invalid. If access was recently granted, please refresh your credentials.		Ensure that your Azure service principal has all three of the following roles: Disk Snapshot Contributor, Network Contributor and Virtual Machine Contributor. See Article 1412 for help.